hoved
Christian men to try and arrest such a state of things. Christian men
believed the Doctor, and invested him with tremendous power. And what
has been the consequence? That the world has a fresh sectarian paper,
and that the readers of the infidel press remain just where they were.
Is this a success?

Take another test. The London weekly papers exchange with the country
ones; the consequence is, many of the leaders appearing in the former are
reprinted in the latter. This is about the best test you can have of
what a newspaper is. The editors of the country papers are very fair
representatives of the intelligence of the age. What they reprint must
be generally good. You would expect this to be so, and it actually is
the case. The papers which have the highest reputation for talent and
clearness of view are precisely the papers most quoted from. But who
ever saw a reprint of a leader from the 'British Banner'? If the leaders
in the 'Banner' were as distinguished for the vigour of language, for the
correctness of their views, they would be reprinted as extensively as the
papers the 'Banner' was intended to supersede. If the Doctor's aim were
good, if it were desirable to start a paper that should be Christian, and
yet popular, so that it should circulate everywhere, the Doctor's failure
has been complete; for he has not only not done so, but he has hindered
the men who would.

Like most vituperative men, Dr. Campbell is terribly thin-skinned. You
may praise, but you must not blame. He seems conscious that honest
criticism would tear him to shreds and tatters. We heard of a Scottish
paper in the habit of giving pulpit portraits. It was expected the
Doctor would be served up in course of time. The Doctor let it be
understood that, if anything of the kind were done, he would write the
paper into the Broomielaw: and the matter dropped.

The last time I heard the Doctor he was preaching about the Chinese. He
told us, what most of us knew well before, that China was a very large
country, that it had a wall eighteen hundred miles long, that Confucius
lived three or four hundred years before Christ; but there was one thing
he did not tell us--that the Chinese call a man of talk, and swagger, and
rhodomontade, a paper tiger. But perhaps the Doctor was wise, as
comparisons are odious. After all, that such a man, with his fulsome
eulogies and violent invective, should have come to be a power, is a
melancho