Highlanders to take sittings in the Chapel, because they would thereby forego what they accounted as "privileges."-Baptism for their children, and admission to the Lord's Table, which they readily obtained in the Church of Scotland, but which could not be extended to them in the Congregational Church, without full evidence of their being regenerated persons, and as such eligible for admission to Church Membership. The attendance on Mr Campbell's ministry was from this cause never great, and the Church had to struggle with many discouragements and difficulties. Another practical difficulty also, of a more serious kind, had arisen, which it was found impossible to obviate. Highlanders who came to settle in Glasgow, however partial to their native language, and desirous to hear the Gospel preached in that tongue, yet whenever their children began to rise up around them, from their mingling constantly with the children of the Lowlanders, they were found to be unable to speak the language of their parents with fluency, or to understand it properly when spoken, and thus the parents and the children could not listen with interest or with profit to the same discourse. This difficulty was becoming so insurmountable previous to Mr Campbell's death, that it was seriously contemplated to relinquish the Gaelic as a medium for conveying instruction from the pulpit, and confine the public services to the English tongue. Immediately, therefore, after that event, the Gaelic was discontinued, and the pulpit was supplied for a time principally by students connected with the Theological Academy, under Mr Ewing and Dr Wardlaw. On Wednesday, the 26th October 1836, a public service was held in the Chapel, when Mr Peter Mather, formerly Minister of the United Secession Church in West Kilbride, having embraced Congregational views of church government, was set apart in the usual form. Mr Mather did not hold office long. Mr David Russell was ordained pastor of the Church, in Brown Street Chapel, on Wednesday evening the 6th May 1839. p. 253. The Church and Congregation removed, 4th November 1841, to a Chapel they had purchased in Nicolson Street.-See Congregational Magazine 1841, p. 428. FOR THINKERS AND DISCIPLES. PRESUMPTUOUS DOGMATISM.─Dr Lawson, Selkirk, had a strong aversion to everything like self-confidence or presumption. As he had none himself he could not well endure it in others. He was once at a funeral in an old deserted churchyard near Selkirk. He here encountered a person who pretended to be a preacher, in his way, and seemed to himself a man of no small consequence. He began to declaim among the people in the burying-ground, and made sundry rather dogmatical assertions; among others, he declared that he took everything stated in the Bible in an exactly literal sense, and in no other. Dr Lawson who was within hearing, stepped forward and simply said, "It is written in the book of Revelation, that 'a great red dragon appeared in heaven, and his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth.' Now Sir, do ye take that as it stands !" The oracle became dumb. TO YOUNG CONVERTS.-Dr Duncan said: 66 Let me warn you that days of darkness may come, greater than you have ever had. The sorrows of genuine repentance are deeper than those caused by legality; but when Jesus returns the second time, His visit is even sweeter than the first time He came, and it is on a more solid foundation. There is a honeymoon in this as well as in the earthly marriage; but do not expect the fatted calf to be killed every day. There are duties to be performed, there is service to be done, just as in the married life; and they are to be faithfully performed. Enjoy the honeymoon as long as you can, but be not astonished if days of darkness should come. Remember the sun shines although you do not see it; and if it sets, expect that it will rise again. BOOKS AND THOUGHT.—In modern times instruction is communicated chiefly by means of books. Books are no doubt very useful helps to knowledge, and in some measure also to the practice of useful arts and accomplishments, but they are not, in any case, the primary and natural sources of culture, and, in my opinion, their virtue is not a little apt to be overrated, even in those branches of acquirement where they seem most indispensable. They are not creative powers in any sense; they are merely helps, instruments, tools; and even as tools they are only artificial tools, superadded to those with which the wise prevision of Nature has equipped us, like telescopes and microscopes, whose assistance in many researches reveals unimagined wonders, but the use of which should never tempt us to undervalue or to neglect the exercise of our own eyes. The original and proper sources of knowledge are not books, but life, experience, personal thinking, feeling, and acting. When a man starts with these, books can fill up many gaps, correct much that is inaccurate, and extend much that is inadequate; but, without living experience to work on, books are like rain and sunshine fallen on ununbroken soil.-Professor Blackie. THE worst thing a young man can do, who wishes to educate himself æsthetically, according to the norm of nature, is to begin criticising, and cultivating the barren graces of the Nil Admirari. This maxim may be excusable in a worn-out old cynic, but is intolerable in the mouth of a hopeful young man. There is no good to be looked for from a youth who, having done no substantial work of his own, sets up a business of finding faults in other people's work, and calls this practice of finding fault criticism. The first lesson that a young man has to learn, is not to find fault, but to perceive beauty.-Professor Blackie. FOR THE YOUNG. THE BOY WHO WOULD NOT TAKE A SHILLING. "AM I in the way for Rossington?" asked a gentleman, who was in a gig a little beyond the brook. "No, sir!" answered the boy; "quite out of it." 66 Which way, then?" asked the gentleman in a tone of vexation. 66 'Well, it's a hard way to tell, if you don't know these parts." "I'm quite a stranger," said the gentleman. The boy looked puzzled; he turned to the lady, who had just crossed the stepping-stones, then glanced at her box he was carrying, and then round again at the gentleman. "Can't you direct me at all?" asked the stranger. "Not to much good; it's such an awkward road; but- -" and he looked at the lady. Go, by all means," she said, "and put the gentleman right." So, leaving the box at a cottage close by, and promising to be back in a few minutes, the lad ran after the gig, and stepped briskly into it. His civil and intelligent behaviour struck the stranger very much; and when they reached the spot a little beyond, where roads and lanes met in a bewildering manner, he was glad to have found so trusty a guide. When the way became plain, so that help was no longer wanted, he took out his purse intending to give him a shilling. "No, thank you, sir," said the lad; " I am paid for the day by that lady, so I have lost nothing by coming with you." But the stranger would not hear of his leaving him unpaid, and obliged him to put the shilling in his pocket. When the boy got back to the lady, which he did in a few minutes, he found her somewhat impatient. "I went no farther than I could help, miss,” he said civilly; "the gentleman said he was bound to be at Rossington this afternoon; and if I hadn't taken him past those cross roads, he'd never have found it." It is astonishing how unreasonable people will sometimes be; and this lady, although she had freely permitted him to guide the stranger, kept making little complaints about having been detained, and getting late to her journey's end, during the whole of the remainder of the way. The lad made no reply, but walked quietly on, carrying the box; now carefully taking off a bramble that had clung to her dress; now holding back the bushes as she got over a narrow stile; now hastening to allay her fears about a great farm-house dog that came barking in their path. He was not sorry to put down the box when the journey was finished, and the lady was at home. “I think,” she said, " I agreed to give you two shillings." “Yes, miss,” said the lad; "but the gentleman in the gig paid me one, so I want no more than one from you. I'm sorry you were vexed to be hindered." There was something so uncommon in this way of acting, that the young lady spoke of it to her friends. While she was telling her story her uncle, who had called in passing, said, “ Rossington !—What sort of a gentleman was he?" The young lady did not know much about him, but described him as well as she could; so that her uncle's surmises were confirmed, and he said the stranger was a lawyer, who had been sent for to make a will, of great importance to him, for an old man at Rossington. "I think we ought to do something for William Hazeldean," said the uncle afterwards, when he found how the property was left, "considering of how much service he has been by his civility and sharpness." "Who is William Hazeldean?" said the lawyer. 66 The lad that directed you." “Oh, I'm going to look out for him," said the lawyer. "I want just such a youth. I was mightily pleased with him. You can't think how much trouble I had to make him take a shilling." 66 And that shilling he refused to receive from my niece, saying that paid him for his time with you." The lawyer was amazed. “I should be, too," said the uncle, “but William is not like other boys, many of whom, now-a-days, can't even open a gate for you without expecting some reward. He has a tender conscience; his parents have brought him up by the rule of the Bible, and he does credit to their training." "Better and better," said the lawyer. And, seeking him out, he engaged him at once. Giving him every opportunity to improve himself, he raised him considerably in life, and enabled him to provide for the old age of his parents. "Who'd have thought of William Hazeldean turning to a gentleman !” the young people would say one to another. “Ah !” the old folks would reply, “if you would only learn of him, and be as kind and upright as he was, you might do as he has done. Depend on it there's a deal in manners, but there's more still in a God-fearing life. Hasn't God said, 'Them that honour me I will honour?'" CORRESPONDENCE. Selected. THE EVANGELICAL UNION AND ITS DOCTRINAL BIAS. DEAR SIR,-In your "Notes for the Month" in the current number of the Magazine you make reference to the subject of union between the Evangelical Union churches and our own. I like the spirit of the paragraph you have extracted from the "Christian News" on the subject, and I hope the call of the writer of the paragraph for his brethren to speak out their minds on the Union, will be largely responded to. It would be well, however, if they would speak out on other topics than those specified in your citation. It might not be a difficult matter to come to an understanding about "Ministers' Provident Funds, Bursaries and Chapel Debt Funds," if a proper understanding were arrived at on the subject of doctrine. Dr Pulsford, in his speech at the late union meetings, deprecated the raising of this question. But whether we will or not, it will rise up and force itself to the front, and whatever our feeling may be in the matter, our Evangelical Union brethren will force it to the front. This seems a matter of more difficulty with them than with us. We can tolerate a little Hyper-Calvinism on the one hand and a little "New Viewism" on the other believing that God blesses the work of an earnest Preacher of the Gospel whether he be Calvinist or Arminian. But they, many of them at least, cannot tolerate Calvinism in any shape. They have taken up analogous ground to that of our Baptist brethren. The latter exist as a separate denomination for the propagation and defence of the one doctrine of Believers' Baptism, and the Evangelical Union Churches exist as a separate denomination to maintain and propagate what has been termed the three universalities. They seem to believe that the greatest obstacle in Scotland to the salvation of men is the preaching of Calvinistic doctrines, and some of them can see no diffierence between Hyper-Calvinism and the very moderate type of Calvinism held by our ministers generally. When they come on the subject they are careful to state that although we deny the doctrine of Reprobation we hold other doctrines that imply it. It is a matter of principle with them to labour for the destruction of Calvinism root and branch. In talking lately with one who has long been a Preacher among them, the writer was informed that, supposing the Union to take place, if one of our Preachers should let fall a Calvinistic sentiment in an Evangelical Union pulpit the Minister of the place ought to contradict it next Lord's day. It is to be hoped that few of our "New View" brethren would sympathize with anything so extreme, (not to say intolerant) as this. Yet in the meantime there is much uncertainty on the subject, and it is to be feared some little suspicion on both sides. It would be well therefore to have the matter more fully ventilated. I had written thus far when I saw in the "Christian News" of the 3d inst., a letter bearing directly on the point in hand. It is headed by the question: "What hinders Revivals of Religion?" and the writer says that the question was suggested partly by reading Professor Finney's Autobiography. His object is to show that Calvinism is the great hindrance, and he takes very great pains to convince his readers that the guilt lies as much at the door of the most moderate Calvinist as at that of his brethren of the higher school. One would think that the reading of the Book referred to would have led to the very opposite conclusion. Finney himself was a moderate Calvinist. He held that it is the electing love of God that secures the salvation of all that are saved, and he fought the Arminians on this very point, and yet, Finney was perhaps the most successful Revival Preacher of modern times. But my object is not to criticise the letter. I refer to it because it confirms what I have said above. If the writer of this letter represents the views and feelings of any considerable portion of his brethren the "union" talked about is yet a long way off. We shall watch with interest what they may have to say on the subject. A CONGREGATIONAL MINISTER. 7th June 1876. UNION. Mr EDITOR.—The readers of your Magazine will remember that in the Report given of the Conference in connection with the Union Meeting, held in Glasgow, in April last, the Chairman (the Rev. Dr Pulsford), made a pointed allusion to the question of Union with the Churches belonging to the Evangelical Union. The times in which we live are peculiar, and there is a growing desire among all branches of the Christian Church, to sink really minor differences, and combine on what is held as essential. Large and powerful religious combinations may not in some aspects, be desirable, as tending towards religious despotism, but to the truly heavenly minded, ever calling "Our Father," there is a longing for the time when the Church shall be one on earth, before it be for ever one in heaven. In recent years, we have seen the various sections of dissenting Presbyterians gradually becoming one, and the last, that of the Reformed Presbyterian uniting with the Free Church, may be a token that the time is drawing nearer when Christians shall not only be one in Christ, but one in name, one in effort, with "one faith and one baptism." In reference to the proposal submitted by Dr Pulsford, the Christian News, the organ of our Evangelical |