be successful in his expedition against the Romans, "Aio te Eacidas Romanos vincere posse;" and when Pyrrhus complained after he was beaten, he got for his answer, "You have no right to say you were deceived: you foolish man-you did not understand your Latin, I do not know who this Mr. Taylor is. It may turn out that he orthodox even beyond orthodoxy itself.

Dr. Thomson here said, that Mr. Taylor was the Minister of St. Enoch's, in Glasgow.

Mr. Cooke-Oh, I know him; and many a time have I been sorely put to the test to keep myself from sleeping when I was listening to his preaching. The good Doctor is dead a year ago, and is himself sleeping with his fathers. I am astonished that Dr. Hanna did not know more about Mr. Ferrie. He had proof enough of his principles, so far as fama clamosa goes, and he is bound to defend the rising generation from such men. I myself heard from a merchant in Glasgow-a man of the highest respectability, that Mr. Ferrie was an Arian-to use his phrase -an absolute Arian, or something worse than all this-a downright liberal in religion-a Neologist! I am one of those who are backward in quoting authorities. I will prove that the public opinion in Scotland is, that Mr. Ferrie is an Arian-or rather that he is a New Light—that is, what is known on the Continent by the name Neologist a nondescript sort of thing, which is neither Arian, Arminian, nor Socinian; but just that lovely production of modern times-a Liberal! If this individual be injured by report, he can set himself right with the public. Let him go to the Divinity Professor of Glasgow, and say, "Dr. Macgill, you are one of the first authorities in our church; give me your certificate that all those reports about me are unfounded, and that you believe that when I signed the Westminster Confession of Faith, I believed it!" Let him go to Dr. Dewar, and say, "I have been calumniated; certify for my principles. Let him go to Dr. Wardlaw, whose praise is in all the churches. Let him go to Dr. Chalmers, and make a similar request to him. Let him go to James Muir. Let him go to our reverend friends who are here, and say, "Gentlemen, you know my character has been injured; and I call upon you to bear witness against the calumnies which have been circulated against me.' I now come to the part of the question which more immediately concerns this body. I oppose not Mr. Ferrie's election-I have not the most distant idea of doing so. He may lecture as he pleases in the Belfast Institution, and I would be the last person to detract from the public reputation his lectures may possess. But I oppose him as a professor of Moral Philosophy to our students. I would say to my fathers and brethren, send not your sheep there for pasture-anguis latet in herba. The Managers and Visitors are liberal minded men-liberal in the best sense of the word. I would say to them, "Gentlemen, use your College as you please, and may it increase and prosper; but you have got one at present in it, and until he is removed, we will not send our students there; we will have another man and another place to educate them." I have stated the reasons of my extreme regret, that I have so frequently been compelled to appear as the accuser of the Belfast Institution. I regret that I am again compelled to take the same course; but I am compelled to do so. I do charge the Managers and Visitors with having acted ungratefully towards us. When the Government had put us like masters over them-when they gave us a control over five of their professorships-when they said to us, gentlemen, let your Moderator write but the word veto, and our grant is resumed,,—we did not exercise our rights. We said to the electors—

The Rev. Dr. Burns of Paisley, and the Rev. Mr. Heugh of Glasgow, of the Scottish Mission, who had been previously introduced to the Synod.

no; we do not want to be put over you; we wish to be on an equality. When the Government had given us a power, and when we had been solicited again and again to exercise it, we declined to do so. We said, that we just ought to have the same influence that the public should have over a stage coach, or any other travelling conveyance. The proprietors of the coach advertise their intention of running their coach to such and such a place, at such a price, and their intention of having a good and careful guard and coachman. We say to them, choose your our own guards and your own coachmen. We do not want to dietate to you in this respect; but we'll just give you a neighbourly advice. If you employ a driver who will upset the coach in a ditch, to the hazard of the lives of the passengers, we will have nothing to do with him or the stage he is driving. We will go with you all the way that suits our own safety and convenience; but we will not travel this particular stage until the careless driver is removed. I hoped this forbearance, on the part of the Synod, would have been appreciated as it ought. I feel particularly grieved that I was disappointed. I myself proposed the concession we have made, and I fear I have been duped by my wish for conciliation. I was the person who proposed to the Committee to surrender the power the Government had given us. When they said that they never thought I would consent to it, I said at once, I will consent to it. I do, therefore, doubly grieve that duty compels me to take the course I am about to adopt. I will detain the house no longer, but proceed to move, as an amendment, the following resolutions:

Resolved-That the duty of the Synod's Committee was, according to the Overtures of the Synod in 1825, to examine the testimonials of candidates, and to give their opinion with equal reference to the literary eminence and religious orthodoxy of the candidates.

That, while we have not the most distant idea of exercising any undue influence in the election of Professors, we regret that the electors did not, in the late election, concur with the recommendation of the Moderator.

That, as the Moral Philosophy chair is one of the greatest importance to the religious education of our Students, we deem it expedient to appoint a Committee to ascertain the religious opinions of Mr. Ferrie, and to submit their Report to the Synod, to be convened for the purpose.

I think it right, before we come to issue with the Institution, to take time to make a little inquiry. It is for this reason that I wish to have a Committee appointed. I think it is an act of justice to our students and to Mr. Ferrie. I have no wish that it should be an orthodox Committee. Let there be in it some of those gentlemen who differ from us, that they may keep up their espionage upon us. But let us examine into the orthodoxy of Mr. Ferrie. If there were only the shadow of a doubt, it should be removed: for the shadow might afterwards prove to be an impenetrable cloud, which would hide from us the glorious sun of truth. Mr. Ferrie's heterodoxy is established in the minds of some of the most eminent men in the Church of Scotland. But were there only a suspicion of it, he is not fit to fill the Moral Philosophy chair. Your Professor should be like Cæsar's wife-above suspicion. Were he adverse to the faith, he has many means of spreading the religious virus-the moral miasma, without directly attempting to do so. It will not do, when the plague is raging, to send a Committee of some sort of physicians to fumigate the apartments, and to whitewash the walls. We must remove all for whom we are interested, from the deadly contagion. Neither will it do to send some good-natured people of our church to sign a declaration of a Professor's orthodoxy, of which they entertain some doubt, and then hang it about the necks of our Students, like what many of our friends in the country call a gospel! An Arian Professor will corrupt the fountain at its very source; the bitter waters will sap the foundations of our religion, and fill the soul with doubts and misgivings which would flow

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763 4 Billeters 79. hege on to all eternity! An Arian professor may do all this, without directly violating his compact. When such a man as Chalmers is spoken of, he may say poh, he is a frothy writer. He may sneer at missionary la bours and vital religion. If a man impugned the doctrine of original sin, be might be spoken of as a sound philosopher and rational Christian The young men might be forced to give in an appeal, and the Senatus would overrule it. Thus the moral contagion would be going on, till, like the leprosy, it reached from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot. That Mr. Ferrie is a Socinian, I will produce proof. That a memorial was presented to the Senatus of Glasgow College, I will prove by vivo voce evidence, and that the majority of the students petitioned for his removal from the office of College Chaplain. I will produce one of the individuals who signed the paper, calling upon the Senatus to remove him. And now, Moderator, without knowing whether there be any man in this house who will second the resolutions, I move they be adopted.

Mr. Carlile.As I have been brought forward in the business of to-day, I deem it expedient to address you in the early part of the debate, because I though I have not wished to take any part in the business, yet there are a certain facts which the Synod should be put in possession of. I did not intend to present myself as a candidate for the chair, until I was surprised by Mr. Horner's calling on me one morning, and stating that he had received a letter from Mr. Cooke about it, mentioning, that it would be pleasing to the Synod that the Arians would have no objection to it— and that I should be a great benefit to the Institution. I was reluctant to proceed in the business, my thoughts at the time being occupied in a way that forbade me to care about the world, until I got a letter from Mr. Morgan, and another from Mr. Henry, urging me to it. I then Lesuffered my name to go forward. It was intimated to me, that creden-tials would be required, which did not altogether please me; however, Lavit was urged, that my refusing to obtain credentials might be construed into pride: I then wrote to Dr. Gregory and others, and my friends also shave obtained such a body of credentials as have quite astonished me.Mr. Carlile then mentioned his coming to Belfast, and his astonishment Lat being advised not to collect any testimonials from the Synod of Ulster, as the more he had from members of that body, the more it would thwart his election. He knew that a regular canvass had been carried on—letters had been addressed by the friends of Mr. Ferrie on the other side of →the water to their friends in Dublin, requesting them to write to those persons who might be instrumental, in Belfast, in electing Mr. Ferrie. I might have succeeded in the election, had I chosen to descend to such i means; but I could never have lifted up my head after it. I went as ov far as I thought I could do consistently: I provided testimonials of my V. competency for the situation, and there I stopped. I confess I should

have been glad of the professorship of Moral Philosophy, because my habits and thoughts were turned that way; but when I saw what charges a might have been brought against me, I was glad to have escaped. It -appears to me extraordinary, that whilst the electors were so reluctant de to receive testimonials from the Synod, they put so much faith in the College of Glasgow. Do they not know, that the Glasgow College have a deep interest in the Belfast Institution's being put down? Do they ses not know, that it is depriving them of a large sum of money per annum, LIZA by its educating those students who formerly went there? And do they - not know how jealous they were of the Institution at first? As for my

self, I never cared for the professorship it would not have put one farnothing in my pocket. I know there will be a great many prejudices ved against me, and it will be said that I am speaking now as if in anger at army overthrow, but I care not. There are two points which require the consideration of the Synod. 1st, Whether we can go on with the Institution or not? Is the Synod to be told, that a testimonial of theirs, in

stead of assisting a candidate, will throw him out? Mr. Cooke took alarm at the election of Mr. Bruce; and when numbers attempted to put him down, I was the only person who stood up in his defence. At that time, a deputation from the Institution assured us that there would be nothing of a similar character in future, and I was satisfied: a similar thing has occurred again; and I now conceive, that unless there be some radical change in the Belfast Institution, we must give up all connection with that establishment. The second question is-Shall we send our students to Mr. Ferrie? I ask, will our students be safe with Mr. Ferrie? I say no. It is too serious to send our students to a man who is reasonably suspected. The moment any arrangement is made which renders it dangerous for our students to attend the Institution, we should drop our connection with it. I say, Mr. Ferrie is a New-Light preacher he is called, in his testimonials, a rational Christian preacher, which is a kind of masonic word by which Unitarians are known in Britain. I have listened to the sermons of the rational preachers in Scotland, and I never heard in them one word about eternity, about the soul of man, or about heaven, or about hell! They were exactly such as I have been accustomed to hear from the pulpits of the New-Light ministers of this country. know my motives may be impugned, but I care not; and I sit down with the conviction, that the Synod will think I have been actuated by pure motives. I had a duty to discharge, and I look not to the imputations that may be thrown upon me.

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Dr. Thomson-one of the deputation from the Belfast Institution, having obtained permission to speak commenced by returning thanks to the Moderator and the Rev. Synod, for the courtesy and kindness which had been extended to him, in allowing him to occupy their time at that late hour, and particularly for the marked compliment conferred, in putting off the missionary sermon which was intended to be delivered that evening, in order to permit his availing himself of the only opportunity he could have to address the Synod. Were he to consider his own feelings, and, probably, his reputation, he would decline again occupying "their attention, after having had such frequent calls to do so, by the questions put to him in the preceding part of the day; but he stood there as a deputy from the Board of Managers and Visitors of the Academical Institution; and he felt it his duty to waive all such personal considerations, and to endeavour, as he best could, to defend that Institution against the attacks made upon it in the speeches of the two reverend gentlemen [Messrs. Cooke and Carlile]. It had been truly said by the reverend gentleman who had obtained for him a hearing, that the Managers of the Institution had been assailed, their conduct and their motives traduced and vilified in a manner hitherto unexampled in the annals of that body. He would not attempt to make a regular reply to the two speeches to that he felt altogether unequal; but he must make a few observations upon the charges brought forward by the reverend speakers, of impure and unworthy motives which had operated in determining the election of Mr. Ferrie. They had charged Mr. Ferrie with being an Arian, or, at least, unsound in his religious faith; and that for this reason, as well as by way of opposition to the Synod of Ulster, he had been elected the Professor of Moral Philosophy, by a majority of the Boards. Now, never was there a charge more unwarranted or unfounded.

The Boards were men they were, therefore, fallible; and may have been in error in their choice, though he thought himself prepared and enabled to show that they were not. Their choice was honest and conscientious, and so were their motives. The Boards, pursuant to the fundamental principles of the Institution, took into their consideration the moral and literary qualifications only of the candidates; but if they had done otherwise, could they have doubted the orthodoxy of a man who is a licentiate of the Established Church of Scotland, and the Chap

lain to the University of Glasgow? Much had been said of a fama clamosa, with respect to Mr. Ferrie's religious principles. Such fama clamosa had never reached the electors; and were he (Dr. T.) to insert in his dictionary the meaning of these words as employed on this occasion, he would translate them by the terms "calumny and slander." For his own part, he disavowed, in the most positive manner, that he was influenced by any such views as to Mr. Ferrie's religious opinions, and he was firmly persuaded of the same with respect to the other electors. If, however, they had been misled in their choice, by whom were they so misled?-by the Principal and eleven Professors of the University of Glasgow; by at least a dozen ministers of the Established Church of Scotland, that Church which had been so lately announced by a reverend gentleman from Scotland (the Rev. Dr. Burns, a missionary minister), as the mother of Presbyterianism in Ireland; and last, but not least, they had been ensnared and betrayed by the respectable Committee of the Synod, in their report of the eligibility of Mr. Ferrie. Was it possible, was it conceivable, that after an election so made, the Synod was to turn upon the electors, and to strangle them in the very trap thus laid, unless they consented to surrender their independence, and to deliver themselves, bound hand and foot, to the disposal of the Synod? But he did not charge the respectable Committee of the Synod with any such treachery. They had conscientiously, he believed, returned Mr. Ferrie as eligible, and he could never believe that the Synod would really attempt to visit the Institution with the consequences threatened.

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A reverend speaker [Mr. Carlile] has employed various arguments and inferences to show that the Boards were actuated, in their preference of Mr. Ferrie, by a spirit of opposition to the Synod of Ulster. quivocally deny the assertion. He has alleged, in proof, that a document in his favour, signed by several ministers of the Synod, which came too late to be transmitted with his other testimonials, was suppressed by that friend to whom it was entrusted, on the plea that it would have prejudiced his cause; for that the electors were determined to oppose the view of the Synod.

Now, Sir, what will this body think, when I tell them, that I—an elector, who, you may by this time have seen, am not likely to take a lukewarm part in our transactions-I never heard, never knew, that such a document was in existence until we entered the Board-room to make our election. I never saw it, nor knew its contents, till I read it this day, annexed to the printed copy of Mr. Carlile's testimonials. Sir, if this document had been fairly exhibited to the electors, I hesitate not to assert, that would have been received and considered with that attention and respect to which it was so justly entitled. Still, Sir, we should have reserved to ourselves the right of judging. But, Sir, is the mismanagement of Mr. Carlile's friends to be imputed to us as a crime? Mr. Carlile has been told, that he lost his election by the remissness of his friends in not pushing his interests. He has heard that an active canvass was carried on for Mr. Ferrie-that Glasgow was "ransacked" for letters from the mercantile body there to the mercantile body here, soliciting them to forward his interests; and he has inferred that they were thereby promoted. Sir, I disclaim the operation of such interference; for myself, I disdain the imputation. I believe firmly that no such considerations mingled in the election-no ideas of advantage in the sale or purchase of barilla, of rum, or of cotton, ever entered the heads of any of the electors. Mr. Carlile has claimed an acquittal from all unworthy motives attaching to himself in this business. He has said, he would disdain such a charge. Of such a charge I fully and honourably acquit him; I believe him far above it. I ask, then, no more than such an acquittal for myself and for the majority who elected Mr. Ferrie; I know we are entitled to it. Mr. Carlile has told us, that he never dreamed of