t immature, unreasoning
minds should be torn by the she-bears of uncharitable feeling,
at an age when the points really at issue in the case can be
received only as prejudices, and expressed only by the mere
calling of names. And seeing and knowing what he has seen and
knows, he has become sincerely desirous that controversy should
be left to at least the adult population of the country, and
that its children of all the communions should be sent to
mingle together in their games and their tasks, and to form
their unselfish attachments, under a wise system of national
tuition, as thoroughly Christian as may be, but at the same time
as little as possible polemical or sectarian.

{12} To the effect that there are a hundred thousand children in
attendance at the parish schools of Scotland.

{13} 'We are aware,' says a respected antagonist, 'that Mr.
Miller is no Deist; his argument, nevertheless, rests on a
deistical position,--a charge to which Dr. Chalmers' letter is
not liable to be exposed, in consequence of its first sentence,
and of what it recommends in a Government preamble.' If there be
such virtue in a preamble, say we, let us by all means have a
preamble--ten preambles if necessary--rather than a deistic
principle. We would fain imitate in this matter the tolerance of
Luther. 'A complaint comes that such and such a reformed preacher
will not preach without a cassock. "Well," answers Luther, "what
harm will a cassock do the man? Let him have a cassock to preach
in; let him have three cassocks, if he find benefit in them.'"

CHAPTER SIXTH.

Our previous Statement regarding the actual Condition of the
Free Church Educational Scheme absolutely necessary--Voluntary
Objections to a National Scheme, as stated by the Opponents of
the Voluntaries; not particularly solid--Examination of the
matter.

Our episode regarding the Free Church Educational Scheme now fairly
completed, let us return to the general question. The reader may,
however, do well to note the inevitable necessity which existed on our
part, that our wholesome, though mayhap unpalatable, statements
respecting it should have been submitted to the Church and the
country. The grand question which in the course of Providence had at
length arisen was, 'How is our sinking country to be educated?' We had
taken our stand, as a S