ewhat more in
advance, that she may read to him, for the hundredth time, of Wallace
and the Black Douglas, and how the good King Robert struck down Sir
Henry Bohun with a single blow, full in the sight of both armies. And
after drinking in the narrative, he tells that, when grown to be a big
man, he too is to be a soldier like Robert the Bruce, and to 'fight
in the battle of Scotland.' And then he asks his father when the
battle of Scotland is to begin! Laymen of the Free Church, the battle
of Scotland has already begun; and 'tis a battle better worth fighting
than any other which has arisen within the political arena since the
times of the Reform Bill. Your country has still claims upon you: the
Disruption may have dissolved the tie which bound you to party; but
that which binds you to Scotland still remains entire. The parental
right is not dissolved by any traditionary requirements of the altar;
nor can we urge with impunity to our country,--'It is Corban, that is
to say, a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me.'

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{16} There are about one thousand one hundred parish schoolmasters
in Scotland: of these, not more than eighty (strictly, we
believe, seventy-seven) adhered to the Free Church at the
Disruption.

{17} The Church as such ought to employ the schoolmaster, it has
been argued, in virtue of the divine injunction, 'Search the
Scriptures:' what God _commands_ men to do, it is her duty to
_enable_ men to do. The argument is excellent, we say, so far as
it goes; but of perilous application in the case in hand. It is
the Church's duty to teach those to read the Scriptures, who,
_without her assistance, would not be taught to read them_. But
if by teaching Latin, arithmetic, algebra, and the mathematics to
_ten_, she is incapacitating herself from teaching _twenty_ to
read the Bible; or if, by teaching twenty to read the Bible who
would have learned to read it whether she taught them or no, she
is incapacitating herself from teaching twenty others to read it,
who, unless she teach them, will never learn to read it at all;
then, instead of doing her recognised duty in the matter, she is
doing exactly the reverse of her duty--doing what prevents her
from doing her duty. Let the Free Church but take her stand on
this argument, and straightway her rectors, her masters in
academies, and her schoolmas