sufficient evidence of the truth of it. On this account he was imprisoned in the Castle of Edinburgh, and afterwards confined to the burgh of Inverness. Here he was confined several years. His ministry in this town and country was remarkably blessed for the conviction and conversion of many; and he sowed the seed of Gospel truth which still produces fruit. Afterwards he was allowed to return to his house at Kinnaird. At that time the parish of Larbert, in his neighbourhood, had only a ruinous church, and no stipend. He at his own expense repaired it, and discharged all the parts of his ministry there for some time. Mr. Livingstone, in his memorable Characteristics, says, "I was his hearer there a great part of the summer 1627, and many others beside the parishioners attended on his ministry from different quarters." He farther adds, "I went to his house, but saw him not till it was very late. When he came out of his closet, his face was foul with weeping, and he told me that he had that day learned what torture and hardship Doctor Alexander Leighton, our countryman, had been put to at London; and added, if I had been faithful, I might have had the pillory, and some of my blood shed for Christ as well as he, but he hath got the crown for us all. I heard him once say, I would desire no more as my first request from King James, but one hour's converse with him. I know he hath a conscience, for I once made him weep bitterly at Holyroodhouse." When old and infirm, he was much confined to his room. Here he was frequently visit

ed by his friends. Being asked by one how matters stood between God and his soul, he answered, “ When I was a young man, I was diligent, and lived by faith on the Son of God, but when I am old and am not able to do much, God condescends to feed me with sense." That morning before he died, he took breakfast with his family: when this was finishing, he said, "Hold, my Master calls me." He called for his family bible, but finding his sight gone, he said, "Cast up to me the eighth chapter of the Romans, and set my finger on these words, I am persuaded that neither life nor death shall be able to separate me from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus my Lord.' Now," said he, "is my finger upon them?" They said it was. He next added, "Now, God be with you, my children; I have breakfasted with you, and shall sup with my Lord Jesus this night."

A volume of his sermons was published, from which we extract the following evangelical thoughts:

"Our Lord, when he makes his servants to proclaim this redemption, and to intimate it to our consciences, he works the jewel of faith in our souls, which assures us, that the Son of God hath died for us. For what could it avail us to see our redemption-to see our salvation and our life afar off—if a way were not found out and at hand, and means given unto us, whereby we may apprehend that salvation, and apply it to ourselves? What can it avail a sick man to see a drug in an apothecary's shop, except he may have it and apply it to his sick body?

language, receive a license to preach? And it cannot be shown that such an acquaintance with the Gaelic language as may enable a person to preach in it, is an indispensable prerequisite to his obtaining a license, until it be proved that a man cannot preach, unless he can do so in this language; and, of course, that in those parts of the country where it is unknown, the Gospel is not preached; and surely no one possessed of common sense can maintain such an arrant absurdity as this. Previous to the enactment of this law, the presbytery was in the constant habit of granting licenses to young men, on their having gone through, to its satisfaction, the various topics of examination prescribed by the Act of Assembly, as tests of their ability to fulfil the high functions of the ministry, without even so much as inquiring whether the applicants possessed any knowledge of the Gaelic language or not. But it seems it has now made the important discovery, that the General Assembly, in its enumeration of the several branches on which it judged it expedient that students should be examined, and their being found duly versant in which, entitles them, according to its express statute, to a license, has made an egregious omission, and that it, of course, by having allowed itself to be so long guided by its authority, has been misled into an undue laxity of administration. And it has now ac cordingly resolved, it seems, in the true spirit of originality, to strike out a new, and, as it conceives, a better road, for itself, and that too in direct opposition to the plain suggestions of common sense, -as will appear to any person who devotes a moment's calm reflection to the matter, and also to the unequivocal intimations of ecclesiastical law, as we shall proceed to show. But, before adverting to this point,

let it be remarked, that we fully admit, that when a probationer starts forward as candidate for a Highland charge, it is legally in the power of the presbytery, within whose district the charge is situated, to require of him to exhibit before it specimens of his ability to preach in the Gaelic language; and, even though he should be qualified, in all other respects, to make his deficiency in this a bar to his admission. But though a knowledge of the Gaelic language is thus admitted to be absolutely es sential to entitle a person to ordination to a Highland church, yet this case is widely different from that of a young man applying for license: for it does not at all appear that an acquaintance with this lan guage is in the least degree indispen sable to the success of his application, For, though an ignorance of this language ought to preclude a person's admission to one corner of the vineyard of Christ, viz. that corner of it where this language is wholly or principally spoken; yet it cannot, in justice, stand in the way of his admission into this vineyard. If he is possessed of qualifications that may enable him to work in any one part of the vineyard, he is fairly entitled to receive from the competent judges, after he has proved himself to their satisfaction pos sessed of these qualifications, a legal and formal permission to rank himself among the number of the labourers.

We shall now go on to make some observations on the inconsistency of the enactment in question, with the explicit statute of the church, on the point to which it refers. We shall lay it down, then, as a position beyond the hazard of contradiction, that, in every system of jurisprudence, inferior authorities must necessarily be subject to superiors. For example, what can be more absurd than to

suppose, that the statutes of Parlia ment are liable to be tampered with, or entirely abrogated, at the mercy of the very lowest court of judicature in the land? If they are, is it not obvious that the authors of such statutes become divested of their authority, which is thus virtually placed in the hands of those whose duty it is to obey them? In short, it requires only the reflection of a single moment, to convince any man of common understanding, that, without a certain degree of subordination being preserved throughout all its various departments, the fabric of judicature would soon tumble into ruin. The application of this position to the regulation in question, is extremely simple. It is indisputable, 1st, That, in the constitution of the Church of Scotland, a presbytery is recognized as inferior in point of jurisdiction to the General Assembly; and, 2dly, That the maxim of civil law, which renders it imperative upon an inferior tribunal to acquiesce in the statutes enacted by the highest tribunal, must hold true in ecclesiastical law. Between the two cases, viewed with respect to constitutional advantage, there does not appear to us one iota of distinction. The evils resulting to any institution, whether relating to affairs of church or state, from the encroachment of one body of judges upon the province of another body, are equally great, and, in both or either, a precedent to such encroachments must prove equally destructive. Hence, presbyteries are universally subject to the General Assembly. The object of this illustration shall now be explained. We begin with the statement, that the regulation in question is in direct hostility to the position we have laid down; that it is an ex parte law, made by the presbytery itself, in the face of a

law made by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. We have perused the express statute of that court relative to the admission of students into the church, and find in it an enumeration of certain trials to be undergone by the applicant for license; but have not been fortunate enough to discover throughout the whole of this enumeration, any clause, imposing a heavier burden upon the shoulders of a Highland student than upon those of any other stu dent. The sum of our argument, then, upon this point, is simply this. The General Assembly, whose decisions are beyond the control of any other ecclesiastical judicatory, have expressly enjoined the studies to be followed, and the examinations to be undergone, previous to an application for license being successful; and a presbytery, being a subordinate court, has not the smallest right to stretch that power with which the Assembly has invested it beyond those limits which the Assembly has prescribed to it. It has no right to add to, or take from, any of the express enactments of that court to which it is subject. All that presbyteries have to do, is to see that the sta tutes which have been formed for them, be strictly enforced within the scope of their respective jurisdictions. For, if any presbytery in the Highlands has a right to superadd to the act of the Assem bly regarding the licensing of students, a regulation enforcing the delivery of a Gaelic discourse as an essential condition to the obtaining of a license; then it has an equal right to enact a law enfor cing the delivery of a Hebrew discourse, or enforcing the delivery of fifty discourses instead of five, and may refuse granting licenses to all who do not punctually comply with its regulations. Until it be proyed, therefore, that a presbytery

has a right to add to one of the express enactments of Assembly, by framing a law wholly unsanctioned by its authority, this enactment of the presbytery is grossly illegal, and of course a refusal to conform to it is not punishable; and we challenge its framers to prove the contrary. They seem to usurp the legislative power of the church, and to consider themselves so far independent of the General Assembly, that they can assign laws to themselves, and that too, on a point, on which the whole collective wisdom of our forefathers was brought to bear, and their sentiments on which are embodied into a specific statute, which their successors have acquiesced in, as, in their opinion, comprising every thing that was necessary to be enacted on the subject. And why then does not this presbytery acquiesce in it? Just because it deems itself wiser than its neighbours; because it considers itself so far independent of that body, to which, according to the constitution of the church, it is subject, as that it can frame regulations of its own, on a matter, too, regarding which, all the regulations which that body thought it necessary to frame, are already enacted, so that its legal power goes only the length of entitling it to see that those regulations are duly enforced within its territory.

But if presbyteries are independent of the General Assembly, it is asked, where is the use of such a body, composed, as it is, of the representatives of presbyteries, since its laws rest upon a foundation so scanty and unsubstantial, that, exposed to the caprice of each individual represented, they can be carved and modified according as prejudice or mistaken policy may dictate? This law, then, so far from being unexceptionable on the ground of justice and reason, is intrinsically absurd and unjust, and,

so far from resting on the ground of competent legal sanction, is an arbitrary and capricious enactment, not merely altogether unsanctioned by the sovereign ecclesiastical court, but a gross abuse of that power delegated to the presbyteries of that church which this court represents, by one of its express and unequivocal statutes.

Although it be a maxim long agreed to by lawyers, and established by the universal concurrence of mankind, that no principles of expediency can warrant an act of injustice and oppression; and although, even were this law proven to be expedient, such a proof could not vindicate the pres bytery from the charge of oppres sion towards those young men, whose conformity to it, it requires as indispensable to their obtaining a license: it may not be impertinent to inquire, Can it be attended with any salutary result, to prescribe to students as a part of their presbyterial trials, a discourse to be written in the Gaelic language? We premise our reply to this ques tion by stating, that we readily concede the necessity of having clergymen well versed in that lan guage. For, were this to be denied, we might be told, and told truly, that a great part of the popu lation of Scotland, and that part the most destitute of the means of religious instruction, would relapse into the state of ignorance from which they are as yet but partially emerged. And we now promptly reply to the above query in the negative: and our reason for doing so is, that, without coercive measures, there will always be found, as has hitherto been the case, abundance of well qualified candidates for every va cancy that occurs among the Highland churches. And, such is the yearly progressive increase of stu dents of theology, that the number