people, as represented by
the majority, and to the membership of the Free Church, in the _de
facto_ statistical sense and proportion in which the Free Church is
national. It will not restore them to us in the theoretic sense; but
then there are at least three other true original Churches of
Scotland, which in that respect will be greatly worse off than
ourselves,--the true national Cameronian Church, the true national
Episcopalian Church, and a true compact little Church of the whole
nation, that, in the form of one very excellent minister, labours in
the east.

Meanwhile, we would fain say to our country folk and readers of the
north of Scotland: You, of all the Free Churchmen of the kingdom, have
an especial stake in this matter. Examine for yourselves,--trust to
your own good sense,--exercise as Protestants your right of private
judgment,--and see whether, as Christian men and good Scotchmen, you
may not fairly employ the political influence given you by God and
your country, in possessing yourselves of the parish schools. There
will be deep points mooted in this controversy, which neither you nor
we will ever be in the least able to understand. You will no doubt be
told of a theocratic theory of the British Government, perfectly
compatible, somehow, with the receipt of educational _grants_ from
which all recognition of the religious element on the part of the
State is, at the express request of the Church, to be thoroughly
discharged, but not at all compatible with the receipt of an
educational _endowment_ of exactly the same character, from which the
same State recognition of the same religious element is to be
discharged in the same degree. You will, we say, not be able to
understand this. The late Dr. Thomas Chalmers and the late Rev. Mr.
Stewart of Cromarty could not understand it; we question much whether
Dr. William Cunningham understands it; and we are quite sure that Dr.
Guthrie and Dr. Begg do not. And you, who are poor simple laymen, will
never be able to understand it at all. But you are all able to
understand that the parish schools of your respective districts, now
lying empty and useless, belong of right to you; and that it would be
a very excellent thing to have that right restored to you, both on
your own behalf and on that of your children.

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{7} 'The sixth resolution [of the Educational Manifesto], in
which the opinion of Dr. Chalmers is quoted, that Government
[should] abstai