a minimum salary; it constitutes the school committees on a more equitable basis; it enacts the compulsory establishment of schools in parishes as well as burghs where the want has been proven; it makes a just distinction betwixt permanent and incidental expenditure, it provides for the immediate construction of the requisite machinery, leaving the question of management to be settled when the necessity arises; it authorises the summary appointment of teachers if the committee fail to make such appointments; it does not subvent denominational schools as such; it goes far to render attendance compulsory, and makes suitable provision for the education of those without the means of obtaining it. We do not think much of the cautious and tedious procedure recommended for the discovery of bona fide lack of the means of education, and prefer the survey of the Lord Advocate's old measure. Delay is too fatal in this matter of Education. Nor do we approve of the adjustment of the burthens of the teachers' retiring allowances, nor of the standard of acquirement proposed. To be able to read the Bible is certainly about as arbitrary a measure of qualification as could be devised. We must now proceed to express our wish that this Bill do not pass into law, and to explain why we are unfriendly to it. Our reason is simply this, that it partakes of the denominational character of Sir John Pakington's Bill for England of last session, and superadds the elements of compulsion which Sir John Pakington had the good sense to exclude. Will Parliament never see that it ought to fight the great battle of contending sects once for all, and not leave the combat to inferior courts? If it cannot settle the question, by what right does it invest another power, far more incompetent, with the right of settling it? If it be unjust for Parliament to prescribe what religious instruction shall be given, how does it become justice on the part of a committee appointed by rate-payers?

In one respect does Lord Kinnaird differ in his enactments on this point from his predecessors and contemporaries such as Lord Brougham, Sir John Pakington, the Earl of Granville, and the Lord Advocate, viz., that his Bill contains no express clause about the setting apart of particular hours for the imparting of religious instruction, nor the obligation of withholding it from all whose parents object. Can it be that Lord Kinnaird has made yet another discovery? We have seen that he has found out that different classes of schools may be lawfully established; it would seem that he is also alive to the truth, that it is impossible to box up religious instruction into a corner. The inculcation of sectarian views may be thus treated, but not the teaching of what is common to all sects -and religion is confined to none. How bright were our, anticipations on finding Lord John Russell quoting Dr Arnold's judgment on this question; how sad the disappointment on perusing his deductions therefrom! Dr Arnold's decision is: "He who judges of good and evil, right and wrong, without reference to the authority of Christianity, virtually denies it;" in other words, "it is wrong to teach morality on any other basis." Lord John, in deference to Dr Arnold, provides for religious instruction, and yet professes to preserve dissentients from its inculcation. To effect the latter purpose and still act up to the spirit of Dr Arnold, it is necessary to exclude not only the teaching of special tenets, but also of morality. The latter may be enforced but not taught. Beside this cardinal blunder, the resolutions submitted by Lord John Russell are open to objections. They propose to perpetuate the existing system of denominational grants with its partiality, its discord-perpetuating tendency, and its complicated and unnecessarily expensive machinery. Both Lord John Russell and Lord Kinnaird err in shutting their eyes to the truth, that the existing systems are by no means immaculate in the eyes of a

large portion of the nation. We do not hesitate to pronounce the giving of grants to Protestants as such an injustice to the rest of the nation, while to afford aid to Non-Protestants is intrinsically unlawful. Again, as regards the Scottish Parochial Schools, we declare boldly that they have been all along resting on an unsound foundation. That there is no just principle involved in the burthens imposed on the heritors-that the schools have never been truly national. Another objection to Lord John's resolutions is, that even though it should make the Education of the country complete, it would be by means of far too complicated a machinery. Be this as it may, however, we must give Lord John Russell credit for having perceived the futility of further efforts to pass a comprehensive Bill, without first paving the way by obtaining the assent of the House to certain fundamental positions. We do not consider the resolutions well chosen, nor addressed to the points which chiefly call for a settlement; but we gladly acknowledge the wisdom of the idea, and we can only hope to see opposition, no matter from what party, divested of all that is irrelevant, by the carrying or rejecting of such resolutions, and regret, therefore, that Lord John has seen fit to withdraw them. Until the belligerents be brought to a hand-to-hand combat there will be no end of talk. Et voilà tout.

On the whole, we consider the present aspect of things promising; and though we do not anticipate an immediate, we look forward to a not far distant triumph of the cause of National Education, based on sound principles of cosmopolitan application. Indeed this is the view of the subject taken by the Earl of Granville himself, who does not intend moving the second reading of his Bill until the probable result of Lord John Russell's efforts be more discernible, nor is he fully resolved to proceed with his measure, under certain circumstances, at all. Lord Kinnaird's Bills, Nos. 1 and 2, and those still to be brought before the House by the Lord Advocate, are not likely all to go to debate. One or other will withdraw his schemes with a view to modifying those of his competitor, or the measures will all be referred to a Committee of the House. As said, however, we do not think they will either merit or meet with extensive success.

Review.

LIFE AND WRITINGS OF RALPH WARDLAW, D.D.* DR ALEXANDER seems to have performed his task conscientiously. The work before us was, in a manner, thrust upon him. He frankly acknowledges his unfitness, and therefore, however much we may regret its having been so, yet must we respect the manliness that scorned to swerve from its own convictions, even under the shadow of Dr Wardlaw's deservedly great name. Certainly no one ought to have had the ungenerous hardihood to cast in his teeth his own frank and true-spirited Preface. We would have liked, however, to have had more detail about Dr Wardlaw, and less of Dr Alexander's own speculations, which he seems to have considered a sort of conscience-duty to press in wherever he could manage to do so. We do

* "Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Ralph Wardlaw, D.D." By Wm. Lindsay Alexander, D.D. Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black. 1856.

not find fault with these in themselves-nay, we have very much enjoyed them-but in justice to the memory of the man whose life he is narrating, we condemn their appearance as out of place. He has merely sketched the man too-he has not fully painted him at any one point of his very interesting life. He has not even given us the picture that many will delight to hang up in their memories-the "old man eloquent" as they last saw him expounding the Scriptures in the light of a mind as fresh, elastic, and vigorous, as in the days of his youth. Of the thousands who have seen and listened to him, how few will forget! There, in his pulpit, he stands the very impersonation of Cowper's "Good Preacher "-his meek eye beaming with modest confidence-his voice, musically me lodious, finely rounding off the sharp edge of his severe and subtle reasoning-his whole bearing that of a man, independent and fearless, yet persuasively charitable and forbearing, surrounding him with an atmosphere of zeal and fervency, if not with the vigour and force of a sweetly persuasive eloquence.

Ostensibly, Dr Wardlaw belonged to the Congregational section of the church, but we are much mistaken if the Protestant Christian world will not claim him as a thoroughly unsectarian man. His was a sensitively humane heart, as large in its sympathies as humanity itself. His faith was built so broadly that at times he was accused of latitudinarian heterodoxy; and though he firmly held to his honest conviction of what he deemed to be the essentiality of the truth, he yet extended a most gentle charity to all those who conscientiously differed from him. In the range of those studies to which he devoted himself, he speculated clearly and profoundly, and exhibited a catholicity of thought and feeling which we rarely see accompany a mind limited by convention to certain departments of knowledge and philosophy, and to exclusive views of the art of life. With these characteristics joined to great moral earnestness and fearlessness in bringing forward the truth and acting up to it, we are more inclined to apply to him the epithet great, than to many others whose memories have claimed it. Be the unanimity in such an estimate of his character as it may, few, if any, at heart, will dispute his title to being called, in the emphatic sense of the term, a GOOD MAN. How far he conformed to the only true model of a 'sublime life' the example of Christ this volume bears evidence.

Ralph Wardlaw was born at Dalkeith, in the county of Mid-Lothian, on the 22d of December, 1779. By the father's side, he was connected with Bishop Wardlaw, who founded the University of St Andrew's, the oldest seat of learning in the Scottish kingdom; and by the mother's 'with no less a personage than King James V. With regard to this, Dr Alexander very appropriately and very justly

says:

"There are some people who say they attach no importance to a man's descent, or to family honours, and despise those who do; but I cannot help thinking their judgment in this matter erroneous, and their feeling unnatural. "The glory of

children,' says the wisest of men, 'are their fathers;' and I do not see why an honourable descent should not be valued as well as any other blessing of Providence."

To have worthy ancestors is a spur to act worthily, though not the main impetus to action. It is the empty boast of hereditary nobility, unsupported by sterling proper worth, that provokes derision. Ralph required not the eclat of transmitted dignity. Nature and the grace of God had endowed him amply.

In the absence of definite data regarding his boyhood, the following graphic picture, given by Dr Alexander, on the faith of "the boy being father of the man," is consistently, and well imagined:

"I cannot think of him as one of those tame, pithless, spiritless boys who are always quiet and well behaved; who preserve throughout the day a spotless dress and an unrumpled collar; who are the pride of prim nursery-maids, the joy of aged unmarried aunts, and the favourites of self-indulgent bachelors; who have a precocious perception of the proprieties, and a premature tendency towards the sublime of mediocrity. I rather picture to myself a bright-faced merry boy, full of energy and fun, fond of muscular activity, an adept at bat and ball, not innocent of a few tricks and practical jokes at times, but ever open and truthful -ever ready to consult the wishes of those to whom he owed obedience, with a manly sense of duty restraining and regulating his native vivacity, and with a deep fountain of natural affection which made it a pleasant thing for him to subordinate personal inclinations to the convenience or comfort of those around him."

Dr Wardlaw's own views on this point are well attention of those who direct the education of youth. advanced in life himself, he wrote thus to his grandson :-

worth the When far

"Persevere, my dear boy. You have not trifled, and you will not trifle. And when I say this, you will not suppose me so unreasonable as to expect that you should be always at the desk. I don't wish that. I would command the contrary. Your esteemed teacher knows well how essential health is to study-the sanum corpus to the sana mens. I'll tell you what I like. I like to see a boy put spirit into both his learning and his recreation-his books and his play; so that he can not only put the books out of his mind when he is at the play (there is no great difficulty in that), but put the play out of his mind when he is at the books. This is the way to make both serve most effectually their respective ends."

At the early age of twelve, he entered the University of Glasgow. Here he enjoyed the instructions of such men as Young and Jardine, each in his respective department and peculiar method unrivalled. Jardine, especially, was calculated to give his mind a scope and a power which the method pursued could hardly fail of communicating. Dr Alexander's remarks here are most descriminating and

judicious:

"His views of the proper end of education, and the best method of securing that end, were founded on an accurate acquaintance at once with the instrument on which the educator has to operate, and the kind of cultivation which best fits a man for the duties of life. His favourite text-book was the Novum Organon of Bacon, and by thoroughly drilling his students in this, he took the best means for laying the basis of all subsequent success in the pursuit of truth, or the management of affairs; for the inductive method is applicable alike to the researches of science and the business of life. He bestowed great pains on the written exercises of the students, not only carefully correcting all errors of ex

...

pression, but pointing out inaccuracies of thought, and fallacious or defective reasoning, whenever they occurred. His name does not stand among those who have enlarged the bounds, or added to the resources of philosophy; but as a master of the science and practice of education, he occupies a place of the highest distinction. . . . Under such a teacher, a student like Mr Wardlaw could not but largely profit. . . . Hitherto he had occupied himself chiefly with the thoughts of other men, and from such studies he had obtained a store of elegant sentiments, a copious vocabulary, and refinement of taste, especially in the selection of words, and the arrangement of those into sentences. But now he was taught to think for himself; to discriminate accurately between thought and thought; to reason consecutively; to weigh and estimate with patience and nicety conflicting positions or judgments, and to set forth, in proper order and with proper effect, his own conclusions, with the grounds on which they rested."

Mr Wardlaw seems to have been successful in gaining class honours, which are so far comparative indications of his merit. Knowing the peculiar character of his genius, we are not surprised when told that he gained the first prize in the Logic class, for an essay on abstraction; but we are surprised when told that, in a debating society to which he attached himself, he advocated the affirmative of the question, "Is the soul mortal or immortal?"—and won it too. Of course, we must view the matter as an exercise of dialectic fencing; but it is highly dangerous for power of abstract reasoning to attempt so much. Such gladiatorial debates are apt to train the head at the expense of the most sacred feelings of the heart, which may never become even mock game to be shot at for mere practice.

After leaving college, Mr Wardlaw became a student of theology, and attended the Hall of the Burgher Synod in Selkirk, presided over by Dr George Lawson, the successor of the "widely-honoured" John Brown of Haddington. He attended for five sessions. The only record of this period is that of a native of Selkirk, who states "that he was noticeable by the townsfolk among his fellows for the neatness and grace of his dress, and especially that he caused no small talk among them by the extravagance, as they viewed it, of a silk umbrella."

At this time, his opinions of church polity underwent a change, induced partly by certain religious discussions within the church to which he belonged, and the agitation caused by the founders of Congregationalism in Scotland. But the main cause was the perusal of Principal Campbell's Lectures on Ecclesiastical History, which decided him to join the Congregationalists; and soon after he communicated with the church in Glasgow, under the pastoral care of Greville Ewing.

In his first discourse as a preacher, he does not seem to have excelled in any definite particular. "There is even a tradition to the effect that once, while preaching in the Circus, he fairly broke down, and being unable to recover himself, had to retire, while another minister finished the service." Young preachers may take a useful hint from the following :

“Ralph,' said his uncle, after hearing him preach one of his first sermons in public, did you notice that poor woman in the duffle-cloak that sat under the