iews which it advocated, enjoyed what he termed its "racy English," and
the position in which it placed the Noble Lord to whom it was addressed.
It was favourably noticed, too, by Mr. Gladstone, in his elaborate work
on Church Principles; and was, in short, both in the extent of its
circulation, and the circles into which it found its way, a very
successful pamphlet.

So filled was my mind with our ecclesiastical controversy, that, while
yet unacquainted with the fate of my first _brochure_, I was busily
engaged with a second. A remarkable case of intrusion had occurred in
the district rather more than twenty years before; and after closing my
week's labours in the bank, I set out for the house of a friend in a
neighbouring parish on a Saturday evening, that I might attend the
deserted church on the following Sabbath, and glean from actual
observation the materials of a truthful description, which would, I
trusted, tell in the controversy. And as the case was one of those in
which truth proves stronger than fiction, what I had to describe was
really very curious; and my description received an extensive
circulation. I insert the passage entire, as properly a part of my
story.

"There were associations of a peculiarly high character connected
with this northern parish. For more than a thousand years it had
formed part of the patrimony of a truly noble family, celebrated by
Philip Doddridge for its great moral worth, and by Sir Walter Scott
for its high military genius; and through whose influence the light
of the Reformation had been introduced into this remote corner, at
a period when the neighbouring districts were enveloped in the
original darkness. In a later age it had been honoured by the fines
and proscriptions of Charles II.; and its minister--one of those
men of God whose names still live in the memory of the country, and
whose biography occupies no small space in the recorded history of
her 'worthies'--had rendered himself so obnoxious to the tyranny
and irreligion of the time, that he was ejected from his charge
more than a year before any of the other non-conforming clergymen
of the Church.[17] I approached the parish from the east. The day
was warm and pleasant; the scenery through which I passed, some of
the finest in Scotland. The mountains rose on the right, in huge
Titanic masses, that seemed to soften their purp