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thick of his audience. Now he struck the Bible: now he exalted his voice to a roar, and now he sunk it to a whisper; now he stamped furiously, and now he went through manoeuvres reminding one of the sword-dance at the Braemar games.

Surely there cannot be anything like this among the educated clergy of the Scotch Church. The common sense of the Scotch people of the educated class would revolt at it. Mr. Gilfillan must either be drawing upon his imagination, that bride of his being, or describing a pulpit orator among the Ranters. We may remark that the wretched clap: trap about 'fire in hell,' has not even the merit of being original. It was a favourite expedient of Whitefield. There can be no question, however, that among the least intelligent classes in Scotland, a preacher's popularity is in precise proportion to the loudness of his roaring and the violence of his gesticulations. Our minister's wonderfu' preacher,' said a country bumpkin; he whiles comes oot wi' a roar just like a bull!' I didna' understand a word he said,' was the remark of a maid-servant to a friend of our own concerning a certain dissenting preacher; but I would go twenty miles to hear him again: I thought he wad have dung the pulpit in bits: he was a' jumpin'!'

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Mr. Gilfillan's friend explained to him with some precision the different scales of popularity among dissenting preachers:

There were four species of the recognised popular man. There was first, the Thumper; second, the Groaner; third, the Kicker, or as they pronounced it, the Kucker. The first confined his fury to the Bible: the second extended his to the air, and the ears of his audience; and the third included the pulpit sides and floor in his assaults. But there was a fourth class which combind the characteristics of all three; and to that,' he added, 'I flatter myself that I belong.'

We believe there is no exaggeration whatever in this description, when applied to the lowest class of Scotch dissenting preachers and congregations. We shall not trust ourselves to express the disgust and abhorrence with which we regard such a system as is set forth in the following story:

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He painted a ludicrous contest for popularity, carried on in alternate sermons, between two famous mob-orators; in which the superiority, which had hung dubious a whole sacramental day, was decided in the evening in favour of one of them by a fell and fortunate kick, which (the Bible boards had been demolished and the candlesticks overturned long before) broke a foot-board, and laid the foundation of a fame; and both the speakers were seized with a hoarseness, from the loud exercitation of their lungs, which continued for some days.

Mr. Gilfillan did not like Edinthrough the streets of that noble burgh or its society. As he passed city, he frequently exclaimed, 'What a rouged hell! The characteristics of Edinburgh society are 'a cold, sceptical spirit, forming a monstrous combination with materialistic passion. Lust hard by hate,' were enthroned side by side.' The few good people there, dwell, as it were, in an enemy's country.' Some explanation of these hard words may be found in the statement, that in Edinburgh a chevauxde-frise of aristocratic exclusiveness shuts young men coming from the country' (e. g., Mr. George Gilfillan himself) out from the better circles.'

Nor has Edinburgh appreciated some of the greatest of Scotland's children,' (e.g., Mr. George Gilfillan). 'Intellectual puppyism, in short, is, and has long been, the crying sin of Edinburgh coteries.' What a lofty opinion all these people have of their city and themselves! 'When

a man comes to Edinburgh he finds his level,' is the constant cuckoocry; its meaning being, that he is exposed to a system of quizzing and paltry pedantic criticism.' As for an Edinburgh audience:

Curled darlings,-bearded and whiskered philosophers,-pale-cheeked and long-haired coxcombs,-diy lawyers, with faces which seem made of biscuit, the remainder biscuit after a voyage,students at the barrel-age,'--and ladies worthy of being doomed to similar immurement, with quizzing-glasses at their eyes, and affectation steeping their faces and figures, an air of intense conceit pervading the whole assembly,-such, after deducting one nine-tenth [whatever that may mean], of sensible persons, is the average composition of an Edinburgh audience.

Pretension and buckram, in short,

without capital or reality, distinguish this city, alike in its private life, its literature, its philosophy, and its religion. Time would fail me, and temper too, were I to dilate on its haughty and sneering scorn for the provinces, for provincial men, for even London, Dublin, and Paris, as if they, too, were overtopped by this Norland eyrie, resting on its cold crag, and with its exalted indigence, proud sin, and shivering population.

Upon all this outburst of illnature and absurdity, we have only to remark, that whatever Edinburgh society may be, Mr. Gilfillan is wholly incapable of describing it, inasmuch as he never did and never could by possibility find admission into it. The grapes are sour:' all this spite is just the mortification of the baffled outsider, who has taken to vilifying what he could not reach. And what Mr. Gilfillan says of the lack of appreciation of genius among Edinburgh men and women, may perhaps be explained by the fact that, in Edinburgh, Mr. Gilfillan is held in very different estimation from that in which he tells us many people hold him, and in which, beyond all question, he holds himself. He assures us that he receives letters from all parts of the world, the writers of which thank him for the delightful hours they have enjoyed in perusing his charming pages; while so blind and perverse is the educated class in Edinburgh, that by it Mr. Gilfillan is regarded as one of the most contemptible quacks who have disgraced literature for many a year. Remarkable indeed is the conflict of opinion and taste between Mr. Gilfillan and the Edinburgh public; for while the 'Man' assures us that the author of Firmilian is an emasculate ape,' the Edinburgh public finds delight in the Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers.

The really valuable part of Mr. Gilfillan's book is that portion of it which gives us some insight into the nature of Scotch dissent, and the position of Scotch dissenting ministers and their families. The 'Man,' after having completed his studies, becomes the preacher of some meeting-house in a provincial town; and in that part of this book which sets out the cares, toils, and hardships of such a position, we

find all that internal evidence of truthfulness which is lacking in the would-be literary chapters of the work. And there is a value in the testimony of a dissenting preacher as to the practical working of what is called the voluntary principle in Scotland, the kind of ministers it produces, and the sort of spirit it develops in their congregations. Mr. Gilfillan shows us what conceited fools the under-bred and half-educated preachers of the dissenting bodies' are. The younger aspirants are accustomed, he assures us, to hint

That their principal danger lies in being spoiled by their people; that they are sadly afraid that their heads should be turned by their popularity; and that their churches will not be able to contain the multitudes attracted by their oratory. They sigh deeply as they think of the dim eclipse they are sure to shed upon elderly luminaries - 'But really, you know we cannot help it!' I have seen some of these persons look half-patronizingly, half-contemptuously, on such men as Dr. Chalmers, saying in every gesture and look, Enjoy your fame while you may; we bide our time; and, please God, we hope soon to bury you in the light of our superior genius.'

Then we have some account of the mean arts to which men resort to keep their congregations together, when their bread depends upon their doing so :

Fine, sensible man, Mr. Judicious Slyman! None of your flowery flare-ups in the pulpit, indeed; but how attentive! If he miss any of his members out of the church, he is sure to call next morning; if one leaves chapel sick in the forenoon, he has a message during the interval to his house, to inquire what was the matter-whether his head or stomach was affected. If one of his

pupils be absent from his school for a single night, he instantly inquires at the parents; he does not wait to be sent for, or only call as long as his people are needing him. Nor does he confine himself to his own congregation: we don't belong to it, for example, and yet he often looks in when passing, and likes finely to hear what we can tell him about our own church and minister!

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In the clerical world (he says, meaning his own portion of it) there is much envy of worth, popularity, and genius.

. . The moment a man obtains any eminence, whether for gifts, or learning, or popular preaching, or even piety, that moment he becomes the mark for ten thousand visible or invisible missiles of detraction. His works are ignored, or kept out of libraries, or perhaps attacked from the pulpit; his sermons and books are watched; his motives are misinterpreted; his character is maligned; his people are sounded and tampered with.

And Mr. Gilfillan sketches from the life the character of a dissenting minister, of whom he says that

Deaths of ministers, scrapes into which some of the clergy were falling, famas that were rising against others, the character or peculiar temper of their wires, tottering congregations, fading popularities, diminishing collections and seat-rents, schisms and heresies in churches, these and a thousand similar stories were always trembling on the tip of Oldstick's tongue, which often quivered with eagerness as he detailed them.

Such things, which we believe to be perfectly true, indicate a low class of men as forming the ministry of Mr. Gilfillan's denomination. But what can be expected, considering the remuneration which is given to Scotch dissenting ministers, with the exception of a few in the larger towns? It is absurd to think that by keeping the pay of the clergy very small, you make sure of getting men who are above interested and mercenary motives. You simply make sure of getting a lower class of men-men to whom fifty pounds a-year are as great an inducement as five hundred or a thousand a-year to persons brought up in the position of gentlemen. And Mr. Gilfillan gives a most deplorable, and we have reason to know a perfectly just, account of the miserable pay of many dissenting ministers :

The voluntary principle with a proportion of the laity, means not voluntary giving, but voluntary withholding.

VOL. LIV. NO. CCCXXI.

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What misery it has often entailed upon dissenting clergymen and on their families! I have known clergymen of great talent insulted in the street for petty debts, which the most rigorous economy could not prevent them from contracting, owing to their narrow income; and of others, all their lifetime subject to bondage, the most galling bondage, that of hopeless and honest debt. When there were wives or families in the case--I have witnessed or heard of cases even worse-I have heard of stipends paid in silver or copper instalments; and of the wives of clergymen, when asking for a small portion of their dues a little in advance, receiving it in the language of reluctance spiced with insulting wonder, -how they could wish or contrive to spend so much! I have known of families where the children were half fed, half clad, and almost wholly uneducated; and of others which were compelled to eke out by mean shifts, by genteel beggary, or by unceasing toil, the miserable pittance they received. I have seen the tears of them that were thus oppressed; the brave wife bursting out, after long efforts to conceal her feelings, into wild sobs of despair; the children sharing in and echoing her anguish, and the husband retiring, with these sounds in his ears, to his study, to prepare, forsooth, an elaborate sermon for the ensuing Sabbath. And worst of all, I have known many classes of laymen, from the rich farmer or merchant down to the humble artisan, speaking with callous contempt of such sufferings.

Bravely spoken out, Mr. George Gilfillan! There is really something of the 'Man' in this bold statement of what every one who knows Scotland knows to be true, yet of what the better-fed preachers of meetinghouses in large towns are always ready indignantly to deny.

Now we pity from our heart a church clergyman who is in difficulties from a narrow income. But we say at once that we have no pity at all for the voluntary minister in like circumstances. He is just in that state which is his ideal of the right position of the Christian minister; in that state to which he would, if he could, reduce all clergymen. The true voluntary wishes all ministers to be made dependent upon the same system which is starving himself, breaking his wife's heart, and stunting his children's growth. The idea which exists among the vulgar dissenters is, that they can compel their preacher to work ;-they have

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the whip hand of him, and can cut off the supplies if he do not; while the parish clergyman, secure of his living and his parsonage, need not work unless he chooses. Be it so : we must trust to something higher and better than this uplifted scourge in every bumpkin's hand, to keep the clergyman from becoming idle. But from the voluntary principle worse things than idleness follow. Sneakiness; pandering to the lowest tastes of the rabble; vulgarity, content to be no better than those on whom it is dependent; are the natural results of the voluntary system. There is hardly a gentleman among the Scotch dissenters. We do not reckon Episcopalians as dissenters; they are but a colony of our own Anglican Church. Nor do we reckon the members of the Free Kirk as dissenters: it clings to the principle of a national establishment, and it cherishes all the traditions of the National Church from which it so recently separated, and to which we trust and believe it is speedily to return. A very considerable portion of the educated and respectable people of Scotland belongs to these two communions. And in large commercial towns too, such as Glasgow, where men rise to wealth in a few years from a very humble origin, persons may be found among the dissenters who are certainly possessed of wealth, whatever may be their position in regard to intelligence and refinement. But throughout the country parts of Scotland, the true voluntary dissenters are drawn from the humblest classes in the community. Not to mention the nobility-in whose case any dissent save the old and dignified one of Roman Catholicism is a thing too absurd to think of-one would as soon expect to find a country gentleman a Mahommedan as a Dissenter. And it may easily be imagined that if a congregation consists almost exclusively of individuals earning ten or twelve shillings a week, and that by hard labour, that congregation will regard its minister as abundantly paid for his less manifestly onerous work, with fifty or sixty pounds ayear. Yet miserably as Scotch dissenting teachers are paid, they would probably be much worse off were it

not that the comparatively decent livings of the Kirk tend to keep up the standard price of clerical labour. It is a matter of emulation in the meeting house to give the minister at least a quarter or a sixth of what the parish clergyman gets for working no harder. Still, we can think what sort of men the dissenting preachers must often be; what a cowed life of sneakiness they must in many places live; what miserable shifts they must have recourse to, in order to keep in the good graces of the lowest class; what an end there must be of all clerical authority-not to mention such things as gentlemanly feeling and bearing-in the case of a person who remembers that every clodhopper who hears him preach, thinks he is patronizing him by doing so, and knows that he is keeping the minister to his work! If our readers, in walking the street of some Scotch town, should ever happen to see a man of extremely coarse and vulgar features, dressed in rusty black, with a dirty white wisp about his neck, shaking hands in a very affable manner with an unwashed and unshaven workman in a fustian jacket, asking with intense interest, Haow urr they awl at whoam? Haow's the wyfe and the bairns?' and receiving the answer that they are all well, with the rejoinder, Thawts goodth,' then shaking hands again and hastening away, they may feel quite sure that they have beheld a dissenting minister striving to ingratiate himself with some one of his fifty or sixty masters. We say for ourselves, from what we know of the nature of the lowest class of the Scotch, from which voluntary country congregations are drawn exclusively, and town congregations mainly, their meddling, stupid, pragmatic disposition, that we would infinitely rather sweep a crossing than be dependent upon such, and subject to their coarse and petty tyranny.

Mr. Gilfillan gives us an account of the number of aspirants to literary fame whom he has aided:

The pleasure of aiding young aspirants is one of the purest and most exquisite in the literary life. I have had ample experience in this matter. I cannot enumerate the authors who have applied for advice in reference to their