ing Christians of other denominations, who are just as sound in the faith? Why not, in short, consent to such a modification of the law, as shall bring the law and the practice into harmony, and that there shall no longer be exhibited to the young persons who attend our universities, about whose religious principles, whatever differences of opinion may exist amongst us, we are all most anxious, the unseemly sight of their teachers holding their offices in direct violation of an express and positive statute?"

There are three parties who, it seems, have had the misfortune to incur Dr Macfarlane's severe displeasure for their conduct in reference to the question of the university tests-the Free Church, the Town-Council, and the Senatus of the University of Edinburgh. We leave our Free Church friends to defend themselves against Dr Macfarlane's attacks, which they will find no very difficult task; but we have a word or two to say in behalf of the Town-Council and the Senatus. The former we are given to understand have grossly abused their trust in their mode of managing their university patronage, and it is confidently asserted, that "for a candidate in competition for any chair to announce himself a Churchman, would, in the present prevalent mind of the Town-Council, be at once to ensure the disparagement of his talents, and the rejection of his claims." We have no hesitation in pronouncing this a base calumny on a body of men who, as a whole, have shown great conscientiousness and impartiality in the administration of their public patronage. The history of the two recent elections to university chairs in the gift of the Council is of itself sufficient to show the utter groundlessness of the charge thus confidently brought against them. In the contest for the chair of Greek, the successful candidate, who was supported by all the Churchmen in the Council, owed his election to the votes of the Dissenters, although a Free Churchman and a Dissenter, possessed of pre-eminent qualification for the office, were among the competitors. Again, in the election of a successor for Professor Wilson, the late illustrious occupant of the Moral Philosophy chair, there was no member of the Scottish establishment in the field, and the Dissenters in the Council passed over the claims of one of the ablest Dissenters in the country, and with only three exceptions gave their support to a Free Churchman-these three voting for an Episcopalian, who received the undivided support of the church party. It is not unworthy of notice, that in all the recent elections to educational offices in the gift of the Council, the Churchmen voted together as one man, while the Dissenters, as we have seen, displayed no such unanimity in the support of any of their candidates.

Dr Macfarlane is equally unfortunate in his strictures on the University of Edinburgh. The Senatus have, it seems, had the boldness to declare, that even though they should be found to possess the right of admission to the College chairs, they do not intend to enforce the existing tests. Dr Macfarlane recommends a visitation from the Queen, or a reclaiming note from the law officers of the Crown, as an appropriate remedy for such disobedience, though, he fears, with not much chance of improvement to the body corporate of the Senatus Academicus of "the youngest of all the colleges, and but a spoiled child at the best." "Like other juvenile culprits," he thinks "she may be recommended to mercy on account of her youth," and he charitably hopes that "a little more gravity in her counsels, and a little more wisdom in her proceedings, may come in the course of years." The impertinence and presumption of all this, on the part of such a person as Dr Macfarlane, are not a little amusing, and serve to show how sorely the Doctor and his wise co-presbyters have smarted under the dignified rebuke administered to

them by Principal Lee and his colleagues. Meanwhile the church is consoled with the reflection, that "if sorely tried with one undutiful child, she has other three who have remained true to a parent under whose fostering wing they have thriven and grown;" and the public is informed, that the Universities of St Andrews, Glasgow, and Aberdeen, have exacted the test in every case of the admission of a professor. If Dr Macfarlane, before venturing to dogmatise on the subject, had taken the trouble to make himself acquainted with the mode of procedure adopted by the learned bodies whom he so highly eulogises, he would have found that they are not quite such dutiful children as he imagines, and that no two of the universities follow the same course in regard to the administration of the test. It is well known to every body, except Dr Macfarlane, that these patterns of filial obedience are so insensible to the benefits which they derive from the fostering care of their venerable parent, that they have actually united, with the rebellious Senatus of the Edinburgh University, in giving public expression to their earnest desire, that the only tie which unites the Established Church and the universities, should be severed, and the Test Acts erazed from the Statutebook.

We have hitherto taken Dr Macfarlane's arguments for what they are worth, without the slightest reference to the quarter from which they come. But we feel bound to say a word or two before we conclude, respecting his personal claims to be heard on such a question. The incumbent of Duddingstone, as many of our readers probably know, is the son of a late highly respected minister of the Relief Church, and was himself at one time a student in connection with that church; when, unless we have been misinformed, he was as conspicuous for the fervour of his Voluntaryism as he is now for the violence and volubility of his Churchism. We have nothing to do with the motives which induced Dr Macfarlane to abandon the church of his fathers, and to become a minister of the Established Church, a member of the Moderate party, and a supporter of patronage—to his own Master he standeth or falleth. But when a person whose creed and conduct have undergone such changes assumes an offensive and uncalled-for prominence in attacking his former associates, and with the proverbial bitterness and zeal of a renegade, strives to exclude from civil rights and privileges those who are as sound in the faith as he is, although their consciences may not be quite so elastic, he exposes himself to severe and merited reprehension, and may rest assured that such a course of proceeding will not raise him in the estimation either of the public or of his own party. Lord Derby evidently knows very little either of the nature of the Tests act or of the present condition of the Scottish universities, but Dr Macfarlane is not qualified to act as his instructor. "When the blind lead the blind, both fall into the ditch."

THE MARTYRS, HEROES, AND BARDS OF THE COVENANT.

WRITING in this Magazine nearly two years ago, we gave expression to the following sentiments:-"We never have occasion to revert to the contendings of our Scottish forefathers, without feeling a strong desire to see the history of those times handled by one who, with warm admiration of the sturdy Christian worth of the men who built the wall in troublous times, rearing the stronghold of our precious Christian liberties, should combine a due appreciation of the nature of Christ's kingdom, as independent alike of state patronage and state control. Written in the light of the Voluntary system, the history of the Scottish Reformation would yield lessons of precious wisdom, which have not met our eyes in

any record that has yet appeared. Here is a field of Christian authorship, worthy the attention of the Voluntary Church Associations in Scotland."* Our wish in this matter has been gratified sooner than we had expected. Not a Scotch Voluntary Church Society, but an English Anti-state Church Association, has turned its attention to the inviting field, and has happily secured the co-operation of an author eminently qualified by his genius and literary attainments, as well as by his early religious training, and his enlightened principles as a minister of a voluntary church, to portray the "Martyrs, Heroes, and Bards of the Scottish Covenant." Mr Gilfillan's book is not indeed a history in the old and technical use of that word. It does not pretend to recondite research. It does not explore forgotten records, or hold a nice balance for weighing scrupulously minute facts, and assigning their value as evidence of disputed questions. The mere chronological connection of events, it regards as subordinate to the higher purpose of exhibiting the development of great principles, and their operation on the nature and happiness of man. It is, in short, a series of historical essays, of which the "Scottish Covenant" is the general subject—a gallery of historical paintings illustrative of this one theme, and which are successively displayed with something like the brilliancy of the Bude light, frequently more impressive and imposing than the living reality would have been to ordinary readers.

The author's ideal of "a historian after truth, love, and beauty's own heart" is of an exalted character-beyond what he himself professes to have attained, and beyond what has been reached as yet by any human writer known to us; but at least his exemplification of it is a noble effort, and even to propose it, and declare it to be his aim, shows an earnestness and elevation which every reader must admire.

"The true historian, intellectually and morally, must possess many of the faculties of the epic poet. He must aim at his severe purpose-his cumulative interest-his conjunction of grandeur in the whole with simplicity in the parts-the solemnity of his spirit-the general gravity of his tone-the episodes, in which he gathers up, as in baskets, the fragments of his story-the high argument or moral, less standing up from, than living through, the whole strain-his union of imaginative and intellectual power, and his perspicuity, purity, and clear energy of language. Besides all this, the historian must do the following things: he must be able to live in and reproduce the age of which he writes; he must sympathise with its ruling passions and purposes, without being swallowed up or identified with them; he must understand the points, alike of agreement and of difference, between the past age and his own time; he must exercise a judicious impartiality in determining the deeds, motives, purposes, and pretexts of various parties; he must make the proper degree of allowance-nor more nor lesswhen judging of dubious or criminal conduct, for diversities of moral codes, national customs, and states of progress; he must practise the power of severe selection of facts, looking at them always in their representative character; he must unite broad views of the general current of events, and of the advance of the whole of society, with intense rushing lights, cast upon particular points and pinnacles of his subject; he must have a distinct and valid theory of progress; he must map out the under-currents, as well as the upper streams of his story; he must add a love of the picturesque, the beautiful, and the heroic, to an intense passion for truth; he must give to general principles the incarnate interest of facts, and make facts the graceful symbols of general principles; he must, in fine, be acquainted not only with the philosophy, science, statistics, and poetry, but with the religion of his art, and regard Clio not as a muse, but as a goddess. He must, in other words, not only believe in the prevalence of general laws of fixed trade-winds of tendency, and steady currents of progress—but in the control, constant superintendence, and all-informing influence of a Divine mind, whose Spirit at once impels and moves in the advancing wheels of society;-not only that

6 -through the ages an increasing purpose runs,

And the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns;'

but that the 'purpose' is that of an intelligent and conscious being, and that the 'process' is overruled by a personal and presiding Deity."-Pp. 2, 3.

With this high model in view, Mr Gilfillan proceeds to delineate, in a succession of chapters, the ecclesiastical state of Scotland at the time when the National Covenant was first adopted,-the history of the Solemn League, the persecution until the affair of Drumclog,-the Battles of Drumclog and Bothwell Bridge, and their results, and the close of the Persecution, with the martyrdom of Renwick,

* United Presbyterian Magazine, April 1851, p. 175.

The Martyrs, Heroes, and Bards of the Scottish Covenant. By George Gilfillan, M.A. 12mo. Pp. 256. London: Cockshaw.

and the death of Claverhouse. Then follow dissertations on the character, literature, views, and attained objects of the Covenanters, on the treatment they received in after times, and the lessons taught by their history and character.

Without raking up the ashes of our fathers, Mr Gilfillan shows faithful discrimination and impartiality in dealing with their imperfections. This was necessary to secure a favourable hearing for the eulogy which it was in his heart to pronounce. As popish Mariolatry is apt, unless we are strictly on our guard, to make us suspicious of even due honour paid to the memory of her whom the angel of God pronounced to be "blessed among women;" so our Covenanting fathers are sometimes denied their justly-merited applause, in consequence of the blind admiration which would set them up as the standard of all Christian excellence. Human nature is such, that eminence in one class of virtues is hardly attainable in this world of sin, without drawing unduly upon the strength requisite for supplying virtues of another class, and leaving these latter in a state of disproportion or deficiency, corresponding with the superior growth of the other; and if individual cases are to be found in which the adjustment of the graces seems nearly perfect, and yet the man is conspicuous above his fellows for some one species of worth, this will rarely hold true of large bodies of men, taken in the mass. Mr Gilfillan admits that, along with the pervading earnestness of the Covenanters, there were mingled many elements of blindness and bigotry. He sees about them a form and shape of character, as well as modes of feeling and of thought, which constitute most undesirable models, and indicate a sad declension from the simplicity of primitive Christianity. Occasional outrages which humanity condemns, extreme narrowness and illiberality of view; profound misconceptions, in many respects alike of God's character and Christ's faith; ignorance of natural laws, and greater ignorance still of much that is implied in the important word so often in their mouths-God-speil or Gospel. These faults and failings which have been laid to their charge-while he says much, and says it admirably, to explain them, and mitigate the censure they seem to call for, he will not take upon him either to vindicate or deny. And why should he? It is much that we can say of the Covenanters, that as compared with the men of their age and country, they were like the sword of Goliah, there was none like them; and it is not too much to add, that for the work which the Covenanters had to do, the men who, in a subsequent age, have been quickest to detect and proclaim their errors, would in all likelihood have proved far less competent than were the heroes of Drumclog and the Pentlands. Men do not cut blocks with razors; and as in those days a man was famous, according as he lifted up his axe upon thick trees, it needed a hard stroke, and an instrument not the sharpest, to achieve true fame. The Solemn League and Covenant itself was certainly not tempered throughout according to the Biblethe sword of the Spirit; and had there been time, amidst the hurry and confusion of a great national crisis, for a more exact annealing process, and scriptural skill to superintend it, the framers of that document would have to submit to a heavy drawback on their claim to the admiration of posterity.

"Looking at it in the lights of this age, it seems liable to strong objections; it was an attempt to produce an impossible result by an unchristian method. It sought uniformity of creed and discipline by the sword. It seemed a monstrous mixture of Mahometanism and Christianity-the voice was Jacob's, the hands were Esau's the doctrine and government were, as we believe, those of the New Testament, but the means of propagation were carnal, and not spiritual. It were ridiculous to pretend that it was not, at the beginning, as essentially a political paper, as was latterly the People's Charter. The men who summoned the meeting of the commissioners were political men. The convention of estates was a political assembly, and it was there that the Solemn League was first proposed. In fact, at that era, religion and politics were inextricably intermingled, and the Covenant was just the full result of that confusion between the roots of the two, which the Reformation had failed to remove. Certain we are, that a genuine Nonconformist of this age would as soon petition for the restoration of the Star Chamber, as he would sign the Solemn League and Covenant. Still, even from our point of view, we can see, not only palliating circumstances, but noble elements, mingled in the idea and the purpose from which the Covenant sprang. The thought of uniformity proceeded in part from the desire of Christian union. The uprise against oppression was inevitable, and could no longer be delayed. The men were in blood-red earnest-they were also in imminent danger. Civil and religious liberty were about to be crushed for ever. The extremity of the case seemed to demand extreme measures; their scheme was in reply to a still more iron uniformity, which seemed

closing hopelessly around them. Certainly, it had been better if they had contented themselves with a defensive attitude. Assuredly, their renown, if not their success, had been far greater if they had soared to those views of ecclesiastical polity, which were already beginning to dawn on the great soul of Milton. But non omnia possumus omnes. We, with our present views, would as soon uplift the hammer of Jael, or wield the Rabbah-axes of David, as re-enact much that the Covenanters did, but, like Deborah and Samson, and Jael and David, they were equal to any of their day, in the eternal substance of their character: they were worthy of any age, and therefore, on the whole, we hail the blue banner of the Scottish Covenant as one of the brightest points of the past, and bright especially, because it prophesied other pinnacles in the future-the banner of Cromwell-the flag of William Prince of Orange-the American flag of Independence-the Tricolor-and that yet unnamed and unstamped standard, round which the good and the free are to rally in the last great contest between truth and error-between tyrants and risen slaves."-Pp. 33, 34.

But it is time we have done with the darker side of the picture of the Covenanters. If Mr Gilfillan has pointed out some of their faults, he shows, at the same time, a thoroughly hearty appreciation of their noble patriotism, their lofty piety, their indomitable courage, and the services, beyond all price, which they have rendered to the cause of religious truth and liberty. As a set-off against what we have already said and quoted to their discredit, it is only fair that we should transfer to our pages some of the inimitable pictures which our author sketches in the spirit of glowing admiration. Here are the Covenanter fugitives, after the battle of Bothwell Bridge.

"They now retired into remoter wildernesses, compared to which the moor of Loudon Hill was a champaign country. Sunless glens, dank morasses, where peat-water was the only drink; old forests, and the summits of hills, lonely and buried among the surrounding mountains; dark wooded and rocky dens by roaring cataracts; caves, the mouth of which was concealed by brush wood or by rowan trees, and the roof and sides of which were dripping with a damp and unwholesome dew; such were the retreats into which Scotland's persecuted children were now compelled to carry their Bibles and their swords. The wildernesses of Galloway, of Nithsdale, and of Ayrshire, were suddenly peopled with strange, wildseeming, solitary men, with long grizzly beards, gaunt visages, eyes burning with the glow of earnestness-the gray gleam of the partition between enthusiasm and madness-all bearing little clasped Bibles in their bosoms, and short, but true-tempered, shabbles by their sides. Sometimes they met in broad daylight for worship, but in numbers much less, and with spirits not nearly so buoyant, as on that Sabbath morning at Drumclog. Now the precautions they took against surprise were much stricter, but at the same time their spirits were even prouder and more determined. They were like chafed lions or bears bereaved of their whelps. The language of their preachers had soared up into a wilder poetry, an austerer symphony, than before. One is reminded of the days of Israel's prophets; of Moses, wandering at the foot of the mount which he is yet to climb, in all the trembling pomp of a lonely mission, to the feet of the fire-girt God; of Elijah, in the cave, listening to the mighty wind, the earthquake, and the fire, which are gone before the Lord; of Ezekiel, astonished upon the banks of Chebar, or gazing on the valley of dry bones; of John the Baptist, feeding on his locusts and wild honey, in the midst of that great and terrible wilderness, and clad in his garment of camel's hair; of Jesus himself, treading in majestic solitude the mountain of the Temptation, or wrestling with the adversary who encountered Him there. Inferior, infinitely indeed, the inspiration issuing from these modern Eremites; not to be named the plaids of those latter wanderers with the sheep-skins and goat-skins of the men of other days; but in sufferings, in solitude, and in deep-hearted earnestness, Cargill, Cameron, and Renwick, may be named even with that list of confessors, who inhabited dens and caves of the earth, being destitute, afflicted, and tormented, of whom the world was not worthy.'

"Their worship was not unfrequently performed at night, under the canopy of Scotland's midnight heaven, with Orion on the south, shining in meek yet mighty rivalship with the Great Bear of the northern sky, with the Pleiades passing overhead like a star dissolving into its particles of glory-shall we rather say, like a little tremulous clump of diminished suns-with meteors shooting across the deep of the stars-with the wind wailing in its passage over a thousand moors-with streams mingling their many voices with its doleful melody did these persecuted Christians meet, and their hoarse Psalm, and the loud deep voice of their preacher, did finely harmonise, and make up the full complement of those voices of the night. And as the preacher warmed with the theme, and alluded to that brief gleam of victory which visited their cause at Drumclog, or bewailed the fatal bridge of Bothwell, fierce eyes became fiercer in the darkness; their Bibles were clasped with greater earnestness to their bosoms; their hands unconsciously grasped their swords, and the whole congregation moved like the waves of a stormy sea, and swore, as it were, one deep silent oath, to avenge their quarrel and the quarrel of their desert-inhabiting God. Few now comparatively the voices to sing their war-melody-'In Judah's land; but rougher and deeper were their accents, and the Psalm seemed now the cry of blood going up to heaven from the silent wilderness below, and through that starry desert above, which conducts, by its long and burning stages, to the throne of God."-Pp. 79-81.