But to estimate in your case, I should

but it has not been formed into a law. how far as a principle it is applicable to like to know whether you share in the equal dividend or come under the rule of one and a half more. Even though

the former, I feel great satisfaction in learning from you that your contributions for last year came to £74 7s. 6d. If all associations made up of the poor and laboring classes were to do as well, we should be greatly better off than we are; and I do hope that your association will not only keep up its present rate of contribution, but gradually and indefinitely extend it. If you are under the rule of one and a half more, I look upon you as being in very fair and promising circumstances for a much larger income than, I fear, we shall ever attain on the system of an equal dividend. I presume that there is a disposition on the part of your people to supplement your income. Their present contribution would secure for you under this rule upward of £111. But should they be disposed to make an addition to your income, I beg you to observe, and for the credit of the rule too, that for every £2 additional which they would give to their present contributions, they would get £3 in return; or, in other words, if they were to make out a supplement of £26, and send it to us through the association, then, in virtue of their whole contribution being £100, you would receive £150. Be assured that I am the last man that would say this is enough. My view of the matter is, that all our public functionaries are greatly underpaid; and I should rejoice if matters were so far advanced as that every minister of the Free Church should have £200 a year. I have the vanity to think that, if they would place themselves under my guidance, or rather, as I am no longer fit for action, under the guidance of my views for several years, they should not be long of reaching this point. But letting that pass, if you are among the one-anda-half-rule ministers, your people have an obvious interest in giving at least £26 of their intended supplement to you through the association to our General Fund, when the whole

accruing £100 would come back, and £50 to the bargain. It is true that the people would then have an interest in sending us no more, but in reserving all their additional contributions for a supplement to you. And yet I should hope better things both of them and of yourself, than that you would make a dead stand in your contributions to us so soon as you came to the £100. I do feel confident in the general, that, when there is enough of principle in a congregation to work up their contributions so far as £100, for the sake of £150 to their minister, this of itself is a guarantee for as much more of principle as would lead them to go beyond the £100 for the good and the interest of the Church at large. I beg that you may show this letter to any you please, as my argument against the equal dividend, and for the principle of each congregation getting as they give. On the other hand, will you suffer me to retain your letter, and to make use of it as a case in point for the support of this principle? I shall be happy to hear from you farther, and am, my dear sir, yours truly, THOMAS CHALMERS.

No. CCCXXV.-To SIR GEORGE SINCLAIR.

EDINBURGH, 19th September, 1846. MY DEAR SIR-In regard to the pauperism, I think it is all over with Scotland. After the matter has been legalized so far, I feel quite unable to suggest any modifications by which the evil to the landlord, and what is of still more importance, to the people themselves, can be either alleviated or done away.

In regard to the other question of our restoration to the Establishment, I look upon this as almost equally hopeless, as the Free Church could not, consistently with her principles, accede to such a movement but upon such conditions as would appear quite extravagant to all secular, and therefore to the majority of our public men. In the first place, we should require to be acknowledged as the Establishment; nor could we hold fellowship with the ministers of the pres

ent national Church but upon their submitting to our discipline, or being reckoned with for their disobedience to acts of Assembly anterior to the disruption. In the second place, we will never again, I hope, come under the yoke of patronage, for the modification that would have kept us in will not and ought not to recall us.

Thirdly, there behooved to be an entire recognition of our spiritual independence, to the effect that the civil courts might never intromit with us save in those questions which related to the temporalities of the Church. There is one respect in which we would deal more gently with the clergy of the Establishment than we ourselves were dealt with. Though they never could be recognized by us as ministers of the newmodeled Establishment till they had given the satisfaction specified in the first article, yet they should be life-rented in their temporalities, and the places left vacant would be given to our licentiates.

I feel it quite grotesque writing to you in this manner; but I am desirous of convincing you how little reason there is to expect that there can be such a reunion as that to which you refer.

Allow me to express the satisfaction I feel in renewing my correspondence with you. There is nothing intermediate that should efface the friendly recollections and feelings which our friendly intercourse in other days will ever awaken in my mind. I am, &c., THOMAS CHALMERS.

LETTERS TO MR. LENOX, OF NEW YORK.

No. CCCXXVI.

EDINBURGH, 17th January, 1842.

MY DEAR SIR-Your great kindness to our Church entitles you to know that we are still in deep waters, and to all appearance in circumstances of greater danger under our new Conservative than under our old Whig government. Mean

while, I trust that a calm and resolute principle of adherence to the great cause of spiritual independence is in steady progress throughout our land; so that when the crisis comes, I hope and pray that our Church will be enabled to acquit herself with faithfulness and honor; and that, whether she continue or cease to be a national Establishment, she will preserve unimpaired her moral weight in the country, and have the support, as well as the sympathy, of all good men.

In the expectation of hearing from you soon, I ever am, my dear sir, yours most gratefully and respectfully,

No. CCCXXVII.

THOMAS CHALMERS.

EDINBURGH, 4th May, 1842. MY DEAR SIR-The Conservatives have used us very ill, but I have reason to believe are now somewhat staggered at the resolute and unbending front of the majority in the Church. They flattered themselves that we would give in rather than lose our endowments; and they find it a more difficult problem than they had first counted on, now that they are opening to the conviction of such a disruption, on the event of their persevering in their present policy, as will lead to the separation from the national Church of so many hundreds of her best clergy as could, on the strength of their respectability and influence, carry the great bulk of the population along with them, and, resolving themselves into a Home Mission, would take possession of the land.

We are now beginning to organize the country into Defense Associations, that, if necessary to relinquish our present incomes, which of course would be left in possession of a Church then Erastianized, we may from their contributions obtain such support as might be raised for the Non-Erastian Church of Scotland.

All, however, is yet in a state of uncertainty. Our Assembly begins to sit to-morrow fortnight. The appointment of the Marquess of Bute to be our commissioner is variously in

terpreted. That the object of this arrangement is a special one, there can be no doubt, as in usual times the office is conferred on a poor nobleman, whereas Lord Bute is possessed of great influence and great wealth, and withal had earned the gratitude of our Church by his munificence in the cause of church extension. Some are apprehensive that the object is to conciliate so many as might convert the minority into a majority on the side of Lord Aberdeen's bill with some plausible modification. Let me hope, on the other hand, that our majority will remain firm and unbroken; and should such be the result of their experiment, let me further hope that the government will be wise enough to conclude that ours is a position from which we are not to be driven, and that they will desist from their attempts to force or to carry it.

This is the day in which the Scottish Church question comes before the House of Commons. I am, my dear sir, yours most gratefully and truly,

No. CCCXXVIII.

THOMAS CHALMERS.

EDINBURGH, 28th July, 1843. MY DEAR SIR-I have this morning received your noble benefaction of £1100. I last evening received a letter from Mr. McMillan, overflowing with gratitude to Mr. Johnstone and yourself for the similar sum which he had just received at your hands, and which at once places him in a state of sufficiency and perfect ease. May the Giver of all grace plentifully reward such sacrifices for the good of His cause and His kingdom in the world.

We are to send out Dr. Cunningham and another on an American mission. He may go soon enough to take this letter; but if not, I shall send by him notes of introduction to yourself and Mr. Johnstone, not that either of you shall add to the princely donations which you have already bestowed on us, but that you may confer the benefit of your information and advice in regard to the likeliest methods for the prosecution of their objects.