decline. Now, they are practically national, and
not sectarian, institutions. And yet, even now, the emoluments of a
professorship are so much smaller than those which ability and industry
can obtain in other ways, that it is difficult to find eminent men to
fill the chairs. And if there be this difficulty now, when students of
all religious persuasions attend the lectures, what is likely to happen
when all the members of the Free Church go elsewhere for instruction?
If there be this difficulty when you have all the world to choose
professors from, what is likely to happen when your choice is narrowed
to less than one-half of Scotland? As the professorships become poorer,
the professors will become less competent. As the professors become
less competent, the classes will become thinner. As the classes become
thinner, the professorships will again become poorer. The decline
will become rapid and headlong. In a short time, the lectures will be
delivered to empty rooms: the grass will grow in the courts: and men
not fit to be village dominies will occupy the chairs of Adam Smith and
Dugald Stewart, of Reid and Black, of Playfair and Jamieson.

How do Her Majesty's Ministers like such a prospect as this! Already
they have, whether by their fault or their misfortune I will not now
inquire, secured for themselves an unenviable place in the history
of Scotland. Their names are already inseparably associated with
the disruption of her Church. Are those names to be as inseparably
associated with the ruin of her Universities?

If the Government were consistent in error, some respect might be
mingled with our disapprobation. But a Government which is guided by no
principle; a Government which, on the gravest questions, does not know
its own mind twenty-four hours together; a Government which is against
tests at Cork, and for tests at Glasgow, against tests at Belfast, and
for tests at Edinburgh, against tests on the Monday, for them on the
Wednesday, against them again on the Thursday--how can such a Government
command esteem or confidence? How can the Ministers wonder that their
uncertain and capricious liberality fails to obtain the applause of
the liberal party? What right have they to complain if they lose the
confidence of half the nation without gaining the confidence of the
other half?

But I do not speak to the Government. I speak to the House. I appeal
to those who, on Monday last, voted with the Ministers against the