Rock, a little way down the slope towards Holyrood, a noble spire, of, we believe, some two hundred and fifty feet in height, and in its design not unworthy of Pugin. That spire marks the position of The Assembly Hall,' a handsome Gothic building, which was erected at a vast expense for the use of the General Assembly, and is so arranged as to be used as a church during the remainder of the year. It stands in the heart of the Old Town, amid black houses of enormous height. There would seem to be some ecclesiastical gravitation to the spot, for we counted four or five places of worship within thirty yards of the Assembly Hall;-a parish church, an episcopal chapel, and a Free Kirk, the latter crowded every Sunday by the admirers of Dr. Guthrie. Ă little way down the High-street stands the cathedral or High Church of Edinburgh; and pursuing our way down the same street, which grows always dirtier and more odoriferous as we advance, we arrive at the palace of Holyrood, surrounded by numbers of the most wretched abodes on the surface of the earth.

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The General Assembly is the supreme court of the Scottish Church. Its powers are something like those of the House of Lords-at once legislative and judicial. It legislates absolutely in all matters purely spiritual. It possesses absolute power to order the clergy in all ecclesiastical matters; and as court of justice, it has the power to inflict every degree of punishment upon clergymen, from censure or temporary suspension from duty, up to deposition from the office of the holy ministry, and deprivation of their benefices. Also in any case where the people of a parish bring forward objections to the minister presented by the patron, the General Assembly decides in the last instance whether these objections have been supported by sufficient evidence, and whether they are such as ought to prevent the induction of the presentee' to the living.

The General Assembly consists of about three hundred and sixty

members, of whom rather more than two hundred are clergymen. It is a representative body, made up of lay and clerical delegates from each presbytery, and of delegates from the universities and royal burghs. The delegates from each presbytery are elected annually, one minister being sent for every five parishes, and one lay elder for every two ministers. In presbyteries where the clergy like attending the Assembly, each minister has thus the opportunity of being a member of it only once in five years; but the same lay elders, who are generally noblemen, or gentlemen of good position, are sent every year. The representatives of the universities and burghs are also, for the most part, the same year after year. We have heard of one venerable and excellent elder who has been a member of every Assembly for the last fifty-eight years. It may be easily supposed that members who are present every year, acquire an acquaintance with forms and proceedings which enables them to take a much more prominent part in the affairs of the Assembly than is possible for members who come up only once in four or five years.

The Queen is represented in the meetings of the Assembly by a High Commissioner, almost always a Scotch nobleman. He is addressed as Your Grace' during his fortnight of vice-royalty; the national anthem is played wherever he goes, and the streets are pervaded by his footmen in royal liveries. The day before that appointed for the meeting of the General Assembly, he takes up his quarters at Holyrood, where he maintains some faint echo of its old royal times. He is allowed £2000 to defray the expenses of his position, but it is well known that several Commissioners who did things in truly royal style have spent thousand pounds additional during their few days of office. Heralds, pursuivants, beefeaters, pages, and attendants without number, throng the courts of Holyrood and the precincts of the Assembly Hall, and furnish a cheap and highly-appreciated exhibition to the ragged

some

the Canongate and High-street. Unluckily, the day was a very rainy one, and the effect of the procession was a good deal diminished by the circumstance. Still, all the usual arrangements were carried out. The streets were lined with cavalry; and as we looked at the really fine animals which most of the troopers bestrode, we could not but own a wish to bite our nails, to think such horses ate their tails.' A tremendous crowd occupied the foot pavement; and every window of the tall black houses along the line was crammed with human faces. The sheriffs, bailies, and judges, all arrayed in their robes, occupied the foremost carriages: the Commissioner came last, in a carriage drawn by six horses, preceded by a troop of cavalry. All the heraldic re

sources of Scotland were of course employed to add dignity to the affair; and as the parade swept slowly past, amid the jubilant strains of two fine military bands, it was evident that the sight afforded unmingled satisfaction to the thousands who witnessed it. Arrived at the High Church, his Grace was received by the Sheriff of Mid-lothian, and conducted to a throne erected under a massive canopy, in the front of the gallery facing the pulpit. The front pews of the two side galleries were occupied by the magistrates and judges, and by some of the clerical officials of the Assembly. The service on this occasion is always conducted by the Moderator or President of the previous General Assembly: this year Dr. Bell, minister of Linlithgow, a clergyman whose dignity of appearance and manner well fit him for such a position. The Moderator is always a minister of long standing in the church; Dr. Bell's ordination dates from 1822. Like some of our higher dignitaries in England, the Moderators are seldom very popular preachers: they are selected rather for their tact, judgment, and aptitude for business, than for their power of drawing crowded congregations.* Whoever goes to the High Church on the opening day of

the Assembly, will certainly hear a sermon characterized by good sense, good taste, and great affection for the kirk, but will seldom find anything very striking, either in matter or manner. There are exceptional cases now and then, when such a man as Chalmers, a great preacher as well as politician, is the exModerator. We remember well the eloquent discourse he preached in that capacity; and likewise the astonishment he excited in some of our English friends (who had not heard him preach before, and were unprepared for his oddities. of accent) when he gave out his text, He that is unjust, let him be unjust stull; and he that is fulthy, let him be fulthy stull.' Service being concluded in the High Church, there is a great rush to the Assembly Hall, which is within three hundred yards; and every corner of it is speedily thronged. By the interest of a friend who was a member of Assembly, we were admitted to that part of the house which is allotted to members, and whence the best view of the proceedings is obtained. Entering by a door under the tall spire already alluded to, we find ourselves in a handsome vaulted lobby. Long tables placed on either side are covered with letters addressed to various members of Assembly: the letters on the left being invitations to dine with the Commissioner, and those on the right to breakfast with the Moderator. Passing through this lobby, we proceed along a large tunnel-like passage, requiring artificial light even by day, on either side of which are many committeerooms and other official chambers.. At the end of this tunnel, we ascend a short wide staircase; and passing through a door guarded by two or three beadles, and covered by curtains of crimson cloth, we find ourselves in the Assembly Hall. Its first aspect is extremely imposing. It is a Gothic building, with a very handsome groined roof, which somewhat offends the eye by its overflatness. The intention in this deviation from the canons of Gothic

architecture, was to render voices speaking from any point in the hall more easily heard. All the benches are of massive oak, and have crimson cushions. The place allotted to the altar in England is occupied by a dais, elevated about six feet above the floor of the house, and enclosed by a massive railing of oak. In the centre of this platform stands the throne, surmounted by a canopy of richly-carved oak. In this throne sits the Commissioner, his purse-bearer on his right, and his chaplain on his left, and surrounded not only by pages, yeomen, and heralds, but by an array of the beauty, rank, and fashion of the neighbourhood. A little interest with the purse-bearer (who is a much greater man than the Commissioner) will procure an order of admission to the Throne Gallery, which can accommodate forty or fifty persons. And on those days when an interesting debate is expected, many ladies wait hour after hour with a patience which some of the younger members of the Assembly might imitate with considerable advantage.

Immediately in front of the Throne Gallery, on a slightly-raised platform, stands the chair of the Moderator, who sits with his back towards the Commissioner.

He

always wears a court dress under full canonicals. A large table is placed before the Moderator's chair, at which sit the clerks of the Church, two clergymen in canonicals; the Procurator, or Attorney General of the Church, in gown and wig; the law-agent or solicitor of the Church, in a gown; and also a few of the old experienced members of Assembly who have attended for many years, and who, it must be confessed, exercise an episcopal rule over the proceedings of the house not quite consistent with the idea of Presbyterian purity. Among these, on the opening day, a number of exModerators (the office is held for but one year) are conspicuous by their court-dress and cocked-hats. To the right and left of the Moderator's chair are benches occupied by the members and a few favoured friends. In former days, when party ran high, the benches to the right were occupied by the Moderate or Con

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servative party, and those to the left by the High-flying or Movement party. There are a few crossbenches, which were occupied by such as belonged to no party; and the bar of the house consists of two cross-benches, a little elevated, while a commodious seat is reserved for the reporters for the newspapers. There is a large gallery facing the throne, one-half of which is allotted to students of theology, and the remainder to the public. The seats under this gallery, behind the bar, are occupied by ministers and elders not members, and who have not interest enough to gain access to the body of the house. The members' part of the hall will accommodate upwards of six hundred persons; the entire building about one thousand three hundred.

A gay scene is presented when the Assembly has fairly met. The place is crowded, for hundreds of clergy are there besides the members; and the sombre colours pervading the body of the house are relieved by the gay dresses and bright uniforms which throng the Throne Gallery and crop out in several little galleries and corners. The amount of crimson drapery tends to dispel the chilly feeling caused by the gray neutral tint in which the walls and roof are painted. As for the appearance of the clergy, we can only say that it is very much like a convocation of an equal number of clergymen on this side the Tweed. We were disappointed by the absence of almost any of those quaint, primitive old figures which we had expected, and which we believe were common thirty or forty years ago. In this age of railway travelling and rapid postal communication, men have their corners rubbed off, and are brought (externally at least) very much to the regulation standard. Still there were a few prim old figures from far-away nooks of Scotland, from valleys amid the wild Highland hills as yet unreached by cockney foot, and from the shores of Shetland fiords instinct with the memories of Minna and Brenda Troil. There was still a little to be seen of the quaint simplicity that makes our ideal of that dear old preacher whose remembrance is

In

I could easily recognise the inhabitant of a wild and tempestuous region, by his weather-beaten cheek-bones, his loose locks, and the loud and dissonant notes of his voice, if at any time he chanced to speak even to his neighbour. seeing him, one thinks of the stunted crops of oats that lie in patches upon the desolate hills among which his spire rises. Among many other inconveniences and annoyances he has to contend with, we think also of the lank Seceders, which are, it may be supposed, the natural products of such a soil; and we even conceive to ourselves, with a sympathetic liveliness of imagination, the shapeless, coach-roofed, spireless meeting-house, which they have erected opposite to the insulted windows of his manse. The clergyman of a lower and more genial parish, may equally be distinguished by his own set of peculiarities suitable to his abode. Such as come from good shooting countries, above all from the fine breezy braes of the North, are to be known by the tightness and activity of their well-gartered legs,-they are the vкvηuides of the kirk,and by a knowing cast of the eye, which seems better accustomed to watch the movements of a pointer than to decipher the points of a Hebrew Bible. On the other hand, those accustomed to the pabula lata of flatter grounds are apt to become unwieldy, and to think that the best sport is to catch hold of wheaten sheaves, which do not run away from them like the hares or moor-fowl. The clergymen of the cities and towns, again, we recognised by the superior ease of their air,-by the comparative smoothness of their faces, which are used to more regular shaving, to say nothing of umbrellas, and the want of long rides in wind and frost, but most of all by the more urbane style of their vestures. Their coats, waistcoats, and breeches do not present the same picturesque diversities of antediluvian outline they have none of those portentous depths of flap, none of those huge horny buttons of black paper, no well-hoarded rich satin or silk waistcoats, with Queen

Elizabeth taperings downward,-none of those close-kissing boots, with their dirk-like sharpness of toe, or those huge shoes of neat's-hide, on which the light of Day and Martin has never deigned to beam. Their hats, in like manner, are fashioned in some tolerable conformity with the fashion of the day,-not indulging in any of those lawless twists, prospective, retrospective, introspective, and extraspective, under which the tresses of the country brethren may be seen streaming like meteors to the troubled air.*

Among the clerical members of Assembly are ministers of all ages, from the venerable patriarch, with his white hair thinned by many years of care and toil, to the stripling ordained six months since, and still proud of the bravery of his clerical waistcoat, long frock-coat, white stock, and lavender gloves. It was to us, we confess it, an affecting sight to look at so many of those men whose faithful labours in their simple spheres of duty have mainly tended, under the blessing of God, to keep Scotland in its present position as a moral and religious country. Looking at them, we felt that there was little ground for fear as to the non-sufficiency of Presbyterian orders. The orders of the men who have done and

are doing so much good are recognised by the Almighty. And as we beheld that great array, almost without exception of most decent appearance, and very many among it with the bearing of high-bred gentlemen, we could not but think how many cares and anxieties must have at one time or another found their home in the hearts of men who are expected to maintain the appearance of gentlemen, and to be foremost in all works of Christian charity, on incomes varying from a hundred and fifty to four or five hundred pounds a-year. The best livings of the Scotch Church do not exceed a thousand a-year, and the number of these may be counted upon the fingers. The average value of the Scotch benefices is about £240 a-year. Our readers may imagine the life of struggle and self-denial which must be led by men who have to maintain and educate a