the musical sins of the lawyers and
landowners of Abercromby Place and Charlotte Square; nor could any
natural relation be established between the oratorios in the Parliament
House or the concerts in the Theatre Royal, and the conflagrations
opposite the Cross or at the top of the Tron Church steeple. All that
could be proven in the case were the facts of the festival and of the
fires; and the further fact, that, so far as could be ascertained, there
was no visible connexion between them, and that it was not the people
who had joined in the one that had suffered from the others. And the
Doctor's argument seemed to be the perilous loose one, that as God had
sometimes of old visited cities and nations with judgments which had no
apparent connexion with the sins punished, and which could not be
recognised as judgments had not He himself told that such they were, the
Edinburgh fires, of which He had told nothing, might be properly
regarded--seeing that they had in the same way no connexion with the
oratorios, and had wrought no mischief to the people who had patronized
the oratorios--as special judgments on the oratorios. The good old
Papist had said, "I believe because it is impossible." What the Doctor
in this instance seemed to say was, "I believe because it is not in the
least likely." If, I argued, Dr. Colquhoun's own house and library had
been burnt, he would no doubt very properly have deemed the infliction a
great trial to himself; but on what principle could he have further held
that it was not only a trial to himself, but also a judgment on his
neighbour? If we must not believe that the falling of the tower of
Siloam was a special visitation on the sins of the poor men whom it
crushed, how, or on what grounds, are we to believe that it was a
special visitation on the sins of the men whom it did not in the least
injure? I fear I remembered Dr. Colquhoun's remarks on the fire better
than aught else I ever heard from him; nay, I must add, that nothing had
I ever found in the writings of the sceptics that had a worse effect on
my mind; and I now mention the circumstance to show how sober in
applications of the kind, in an age like the present, a theologian
should be. It was some time ere I forgot the ill savour of that dead
fly; and it was to beliefs of a serious and very important class that it
served for a time to impart its own doubtful character.

But from the minister whose chapel I oftenest attended, I was little