unemployed licentiates at such time as they may see fit to do so. This will meet the case of the schoolmaster who has left his profession, but who by and by may wish to resume it. It is quite right that the Committee should have the liberty of testing again the qualifications of such teachers. It does not imply, however, that this power has reference to the teachers who are employed. There are other important matters referred to in the Report. The first is as to the election of teachers of congregational schools. I have before me an abstract of the returns of the Presbyteries upon that point. Forty-four in all have given in suggestions; and, upon the head of the election of teachers of congregational schools, I find that seven are in favour of the election being vested in the office-bearers; ten in favour of the plan as in the draft constitution—that is, in the congregation and office-bearers; and two are doubtful; making nineteen out of the forty-four who have given an opinion approving of the Report as it stands in that particular; and accordingly the Committee recommend, that in the matter of congregational teachers the Assembly adhere to the plan proposed in the draft of the constitution, feeling it to be in accordance with the constitution and the article of the Assembly in 1638, which enjoins, that in the presenting of "schoolmasters, as well as pastors and readers, to particular congregations, there be respect had to the congregation." The words of the act are plain and definite, and seem to cover the whole principle of election of schoolmasters. The second point of difficulty is the method of ascertaining the teacher's soundness in the faith. Now, on this point, the only question which was raised in the Presbyteries was, whether the teachers should be tested as to the soundness of their faith, according to the existing standards of the Church. There was no question raised as to departing from the standards, or taking one of the standards, to the exclusion of others. The only question discussed in the Presbyteries related to the manner in which the existing Standards should be applied for testing the teacher's soundness in the faith. Now, on that point we find that eighteen Presbyteries have suggested that the teachers of schools be required to adhibit their signatures to the Confession of Faith. We find, on the other hand, four Presbyteries expressly approving of the Report as it stands, and one doubtful. On the whole, there are twenty-three or twenty-four out of the forty-four Presbyteries that have expressed an opinion on the subject; and if we regard those who are not expressing their opinion as acquiescing in the terms of the Report, it will be seen that, on the whole, it is only a portion of the Presbyteries whose opinions have been received, and not one-half recommend the method of ascertaining soundness in the faith by a formal subscription of the Standards. It is right to state, that several who lean upon this side, do so with hesitancy, and others arising out of the division of opinion, or uncertainty in the mind of those who are in favour of a subscription of the Standards. On the whole, the Committee suggest the adopting of the modification, as amended by the Presbytery of Arbroath, that "teachers shall be required to make a formal declaration of their willingness to be amenable to the Standards; and this declaration shall be recorded in the minutes, and authorised or authenticated by the signatures of the parties." The last particular of any importance is the matter of removal of teachers. On this point the Committee's proposal has been somewhat misunderstood. The object of the Committee was to provide security against any teacher having such a vested life interest in his appointment as might enable him to drag the Church into the Civil Courts, and to reserve, with this view, a power of dismissal, to be exercised only in extreme cases, and in the last resort. This provision has been taken up by some, as if it were harsh and severe. Nothing could be farther from the intention of the Committee than any such feeling. They are of opinion, however, that the object can be sufficiently gained by providing that charges against schoolmasters may be brought before Presbyteries on the ground of heresy, immorality, or inefficiency according to such form of process as the Church may lay down. Dr Candlish concluded by moving that the draft of the constitution be turned into the form of an overture, and transmitted to Presbyteries, in terms of the Barrier Act.

This motion was agreed to, and the Assembly adjourned at a quarter to twelve midnight, to twelve o'clock on Wednesday.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 26. 1847.

Deputation from English Presbyterian Church-Speeches of Mr Anderson, Dr Paterson, Mr Greig, Mr Campbell of Monzie, Mr M. Crichton-Settlement of Mr Elder-Government EducationSpeeches of Dr Candlish, Dr Laird, Mr Smith, Mr M. Crichton, Mr Duncan, Mr Sorley, Mr J. F. M'Farlan, Sheriff Speirs, Dr Cunningham, Sheriff Monteith, Mr Begg, Dr Brown, Dr Forbes, Mr Bonar, Mr Campbell of Monzie, Mr Moncrieff.

The Assembly met to-day at twelve o'clock, having been engaged for about two hours previously in private conference on the Government Education Scheme.

DEPUTATION FROM ENGLISH PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.

The following gentlemen were then introduced to the Assembly as a deputation from the English Presbyterian Church, namely, the Rev. James Anderson of Morpeth, the Rev. Dr Paterson of Sunderland; Mr Thomas Greig of Manchester; Mr George F. Barbour, and Mr James Nisbet of London.

Mr ANDERSON spoke as follows-Moderator, fathers and brethren, I am much relieved from the embarrassments I should otherwise have felt in addressing this Venerable Assembly, amid the rush of many heart-stirring recollections, by the distinct understanding now, I believe, subsisting between the two Churches, that the appointment of Committees of correspondence respectively has in a great measure superseded the wonted, but less profitable and practical method of intercourse, that of an annual interchange of compliments and congratulations, the value of which was to be estimated by the length of the speeches which conveyed them. And I am sure that I shall but testify my respect for this Venerable House, consult your convenience, and fulfil my duty to my constituents, by simply intimating the object of our visit. We appear before you as a deputation from the Synod of the Presbyterian Church in England, authorised to express, on behalf of that Church, the deep and lively interest which she continues to take in all your proceedings, and the ardent desire which she cherishes to cultivate a more intimate fellowship with a Church which, by its faithful contendings and noble witnessings, has earned for itself such a commanding and influential position in the eye of a wondering world. For though no longer an appendix to the Church in this land, but occupying an independent position-a separate ecclesiastical status—we cannot but feel, that to this Free Church of Scotland we stand in a closer and more endeared relation than to any other religious community in Christendom. We come also commissioned, on behalf of our Church, to tender her grateful acknowledgments for the sympathy you have shown us in our struggles to maintain an existence in a land where our Church has long been treated as an unwelcome stranger, and for the amount of aid you have been able to minister to our necessities, in our earnest but arduous endeavours to implant our common principles in a soil far more intractable than that on which you are accustomed to operate. These obligations, though of less amount than we would have wished to record, have been increasing of late; and I rejoice to think that your growing prosperity will soon place you in circumstances to feel that you can help our weakness without hurting your own strength, that you can be generous to us without being unjust to yourselves. We cannot resist the conviction that we have strong and indisputable claims upon your countenance and assistance, arising not only out of our condition as a little Church, -the least among the thousands of Israel,-with a little strength, viewed in connection with the work we have to do, and the difficulties we have to encounter,—difficulties increasing with the rapidly-rising power of a Puseyistic and High Church antagonism; but resting on the fact that, besides the portion of the inborn population of England placed under our pastoral inspection, we have, in the southern districts especially, an annually increasing number of your own children committed to our care; and we ground our appeal upon the claims of equity and justice, when we ask you to supply the additional assistance we require to look after those of your own house. I trust the occasion of these repeated demands will soon be removed. I trust that you will give us a master in Israel for the school of our prophets, that having a homefountain of supply for our future exigencies, we may not come hither to draw. We also flatter ourselves that in other respects we are not altogether undeserving of your

countenance. Our Church has given forth of late, more sensibly than in bygone days, the satisfying evidences that she possesses in our system the element of health, strength, and energy, and the consequent capabilities of onward progress and outward extension. Among other symptoms of vitality not indiscernible, she has begun to exhibit the pleasing type of a living Church, in the strong breathing of a missionary spirit, and the visible assumption of an evangelistic character. In the missionary field she has taken her position as a humble fellow-labourer with your own. (Hear, hear.) And it is matter of hearty gratulation, devout gratitude, and cheering anticipation, that, in making this selection of her first missionary, she has secured the services of a man whose work as an evangelist within your own borders has been so signally owned, so remarkably honoured, so abundantly blessed; for surely his past success in winning souls to Christ in his own nation must be regarded as an encouraging pledge that God will not leave him to labour in vain among the people of a strange language. Permit me also to say, that if we are right in interpreting the signs of the times, as indicative of a coming day of trouble and rebuke to the Churches, and if the aspect and current of events seem to point to England as the battle-field where the principles of the Reformation are again to be struggled for, we feel that it is not less your duty than ours to prepare for the conflict, and to pour in fresh auxiliaries to strengthen the position of those who will have to sustain the first brunt of the onset. Nor do I think that you would encourage a useless undertaking, were you to despatch from time to time, into some of the larger towns and more densely peopled districts of England, some of your men of might, as evangelists, to sound the trumpet of alarm, to rouse a slumbering but yet existing Protestantism. Twere a noble sight to see the blue banner waving over the soil of England, and rallying around it the gathering witnesses for the truth, to do battle for the rights and prerogatives of Zion's King. It is time that it were unfurled, for the day of conflict cannot be very distant. We are trying to lift it up; but how shall we bear it up unless you come over and help us? There is a band of true Protestant men still lingering within the territories of the Established Church of England, who, I verily believe, do cordially sympathize with us, but they are faint-hearted or asleep at their posts. They may be weeping between the porch and the altar; but, most assuredly, they are not occupying the high places of the field. The men of might have lost their hands; they want organization, and therefore they want power; they grieve in secret, when they should be giving loud utterance to their faithful and combined protest. Meanwhile, Puseyism is stealthily working out its projects: it is wise in its generation,—it is waiting its time,-it is accommodating itself to existing circumstances,-it has changed its tactics of late,—it is no longer, at least in most quarters, provoking the prejudices of the old, by violently attempting to press them into its service, it is seizing upon the young, its schools are swarming with little recruits under competent training for future service; and, unless stayed in its progress, fifteen years will not have passed away before it will take the field with its followers in full uniform, to assert the mastery. And will you not give us men to fight with them? But I will not longer trespass upon your valuable time. Accept of the assurances of our continued attachment to the Free Church of Scotland, and of our earnest prayers that you may be enabled to bear up and bear forward the ark of your testimony,-that the shout of a King may still be among you,—and that the favour of God may go before you, and the glory of the Lord be your rereward. For our brethren and companions' sakes we will ever say peace be within you. (Applause.)

We have

Rev. Dr PATERSON.-Moderator, it is neither my desire nor my intention to detain you with any lengthened address. I only seize the opportunity to say a few words; and it is not without some peculiar feeling that I appear at all, more especially when I think that what I shall say may assume the appearance of a too special pleading, and that the mind of the Assembly may not altogether go along with me. no very particular message unto you thus publicly convened, beyond a very cordial and very respectful salutation from the Church to which we belong. But I am anxious to add a word or two, to bespeak your countenance and help towards the common cause in the field wherein we labour. You are not only a large and influential body, you are a distinct and distinguished portion of the living Church of the living God, disenthralled in the course of Divine providence, and set forth to act a most important part at a very critical and very trying period. Owing to the circumstances in which

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you have been,-to the way in which you have been led,-to the effect of your Disruption, which, like an earthquake, has shaken the earth and the world,-to the talents entrusted to you,-and the proof you have had of the all-sufficiency of the grace of that God whose servants and debtors you are, your place is most conspicuous among the Churches,-your influence, well directed, is great, and great are the expectations we are entitled to cherish respecting you in the future. You are a suffering and a witnessing Church; the cry of your suffering has gone far abroad; it has gone up into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. But if you have suffered much, you have also enjoyed much. Indeed, the abundance of divine grace is most manifest in all that concerns you. In your body you have such commanding power, both moral and intellectual, and in your central management such admirable wisdom and prudence, that whilst you are enabled to conduct your affairs with a success that creates universal astonishment, your very enemies are amazed, and are often fain to dissemble their hatred, and to forego the opposition they would otherwise more openly exhibit. Now, it delights me to see that you do not wish, even if you had the power, to centralize all this influence, and keep it within the narrow limits of Scotland alone. I have been delighted to witness the warm and enlarged missionary spirit with which you are inspired. But whilst opening up channels of communication to far distant lands, will you overlook the southern and larger portion of this island, where so many hundreds and thousands of your Scottish people are located, and where so many hundreds of your own hearers have such frequent occasions to be? Will you pay comparatively little regard to this immediate neighbourhood, where the great Adversary, with his Erastianism, his Popery, and his loose and unscriptural views and habits of Sabbath observance, in the most insidious shapes, can most directly distil corruption on the multitudes of your people, and muster up a strength which, unless withstood and weakened, may fall upon you with crushing weight in the day of conflict and sore trial that may be coming that may be near at hand? Neither principle nor policy will surely allow you to do this. You, above all others, have a great principle to support, and a great withering evil to protest against, to withstand, and, if possible, to destroy. You have an opportunity, through us, to a far greater extent than, Í fear, you are yet aware of, to meet and combat, on a vantage ground, the very evils with which, as a Church, you are called to contend. Will you now neglect this opportunity? Let me suppose that you neglect it now-that you give your chief countenance, and, of course, support, to some other larger and richer parties, who, as honest men, can go along with you only so far as you and they are agreed; that you stand by, and let us, who are the only body in all England holding, in all respects, precisely your own principles;-let me suppose that you, the Free Church, commit the great blunder that the Church of Scotland has all along committed in reference to England, and it requires no prophetic gift to foretell what the consequence must be. The Church and the religion, and especially the Sabbath, of Scotland, will suffer, as they have suffered before. I am fully convinced, and, when you have fully considered the matter, you will also perceive, that sound policy and sound principle both require that, even at some sacrifice to yourselves, you should strengthen our hands, and do it now, when we are re-laying the foundations of our Church,-when we are being lifted up on the bosom of a rising tide, and are being favoured with great facilities of extensive enlargement, which, if not duly and vigorously improved, may be lost, and not again return. For your own sake, as well as ours, and especially for the sake of the truth as we hold it in common, you should help us to a footing of entire independence in our own localities, that we may not continue long to contend with you for men to fill our vacant places. And bearing in mind how we were affected as to labourers fit to labour in the harvest, now so plenteous and ripe in every corner of our land, by the event that made you free, and that put the whole of the supply into your hands, you should not be over strict in restraining what would otherwise flow to supply our pressing necessities in the mean time. We are well aware of the necessities that press upon you at home,—we have not lost our affection for Scotland, the land of our fathers' sepulchres,-we would not seek to do her an injury, or be extravagant or unreasonable in our desires and expectations; but we are fully convinced that in serving the cause in England, we are most effectually serving it in Scotland too. And I do lay it on your serious thought, under a sense of your peculiar responsibility, not whether you will expatriate any of your ministers, and send them

to us, but whether you will hinder us to partake of the benefit of those talents with which you are so richly endowed,-whether you will hinder or discourage those whom He who walks among the golden candlesticks may incline to come over and help us. Do not, I beseech you, too hastily conclude that we are assuming an importance that does not really belong to us. In point of numbers we are indeed comparatively small. But you, and you especially, know the value and the power of sound principle, held by many or by few. We are yet comparatively few, but we are rising and increasing every day. We have a wide and most important field to occupy. There is set before us an open door, which I hope no power will be able to shut. We have Schemes of comprehensive usefulness, both for home and abroad, which we are anxious to work effectively. Not to mention our Home Mission, our Schools, our College, we have our Foreign Mission both to Jews and Gentiles; and our first missionary to China,no ordinary man, no ordinary Christian, no ordinary missionary,—just about to sail to that most populous and most interesting land. And, let me add, we are conscious of a growing power and a stirring energy, given us for some important end, that will not let us rest, till, by the blessing which this implies, we have reached a far higher place than we yet have attained to, among those that are with Christ, that are preparing to be with Him, against the great enemy now obviously collecting his forces to war with the Lamb, and to war with Him specially as Head over all things to the Church. Permit me, Sir, to say how much I rejoice to see you in that chair; for although I have not had the pleasure and the privilege of your personal acquaintanceship, you having left England before I was prepared to enter it, I rejoice to think that the Presbytery to which I now belong should have given to the Church of Scotland a minister worthy, by unanimous consent, to occupy the most honourable place in which you now appear. May you evermore be honoured with much of that honour that cometh from God: And the prayer of my heart is, that the ever blessed One may give a still more abundant effusion of His Holy Spirit to this Church, and render her yet more abundantly fruitful in every good word and work. (Applause.)

Mr GREIG of Manchester said he had to congratulate them, as a Church, on the noble confession which they had manifested in asserting the crown rights of the Redeemer. He had also to congratulate them on the noble stand which they had lately made for the Lord's day,—that day on which our Saviour rose from the dead, and brought life and immortality to light. The late decision which took place in a railway connected with this city, and in another at no great distance, must have given fresh courage to all the friends of the Sabbath to persevere in the work in which they had so successfully begun. It was quite evident that a tide of Sabbath desecration was passing over the land; and unless means were taken to prevent it, it would extend itself over every railway in existence. He had read with great pleasure the Report on Sabbath observance submitted to the Assembly on Saturday last, and he had also perused with a similar spirit the memorial which was intended to be presented to the Directors of the North British Railway. He trusted that they would not relax in their efforts until they accomplished, in regard to this railway, what they had lately so successfully managed in regard to the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway,-the entire discontinuance of passenger traffic on the Sabbath. Every one knew that another railway was about to be opened in a few months; and he need scarcely remind them that as respected that railway, a similar struggle would require to be engaged in, for there could be no doubt that, unless prevented by the shareholders, the Directors of the Caledonian Railway would allow trains to be run on the Sabbath day. Lately they had the wish of Job realised, "Oh that mine enemy would write a book!" (a laugh)-and not only had this been the case, but speeches had been made, and such speeches as, he earnestly hoped, would not be allowed to die away, so long as Sabbath desecration remained in the land. (Applause.) Those who were opposed to them on this question pretended to have a great regard for the poor man; but it was just such a regard as that of Judas, who carried the bag, and who expected to be enabled to take for his own pocket a portion of what was in the bag. (Applause.) The movement in favour of Sabbath observance in England was making considerable progress; and he might mention, as a gratifying fact, that the railway in connection with the lakes in Cumberland was not to be opened on the Sabbath, which would prevent all that desecration which it was feared would result from the beauty of the

scenery attracting so many towards it. But it was not among the labouring classes