cal courts. Or is it the old
Scottish Dissenters that are to change their entire front, and to
make common cause with us, in disregard, and even in defiance, of their
own principles, as they themselves understand them? Or are we to look
to that evangelical portion of the Episcopacy of England, with whom
_Establishment_ means _Church_, and the 'good of the Establishment' a
synonyme for the 'good of the Church,' and who, to a certainty, will
move no hand against the sister Establishment in Scotland? Or are we
to be aided by that portion of English Independency that has so very
strangely taken its stand equally against educational grants and
educational endowments, on the ground that there is a sort of
religion homoeopathically diffused in all education--especially, we
suppose, in Lindley Murray's readings from the _Spectator_ and Dr.
Blair--and that, as the State must not provide _religious_ teaching
for its people, it cannot, and must not, provide for them teaching
of any kind? Scientific Jews are they, of the straitest sect, who,
wiser than their fathers, have ascertained by the microscope, that
all meat, however nicely washed, continues to retain its molecules of
blood, and that flesh therefore must on no account be eaten. We
cannot, we say, discern, within the wide horizon of existing realities,
the troops with which this battle is to be fought. They seem to be mere
shadows of the past. But if the Free Church see otherwise, let her by
all means summon them up, and fight it. Regarded simply as a matter of
policy, we are afraid the contest would be at least imprudent. 'It were
well,' said a Scotch officer to Wolfe, when Chatham first called out the
Highlanders of Scotland to fight in the wars of Britain,--'It were
well, General, that you should know the character of these Highland
troops. Do not attempt manoeuvring with them; Scotch Highlanders
don't understand manoeuvre. If you make a feint of charging, they will
throw themselves sword in hand into the thick of the enemy, and you
will in vain attempt calling them back; or if you make a show of
retreating, they will run away in right earnest, and you will never see
them more. So do not employ them in feints and stratagems, but keep them
for the hard, serious business of the fight, and you will find them
the best troops in the world.' Now, nearly the same character applies
to the Free Church. To set her a-fighting as a matter of policy,
would be very bad policy indeed. Sh