meetings over the whole country for the erection of new churches. It was thus applying to the fountain-head, let the conduits be closed as they might, and the result more than answered his expectations. In the year 1838, he was enabled to state to the General Assembly, that these two years of organized labour, combined with the two years of desultory effort that had preceded—four years in all—had produced nearly ₤200,000, out of which nearly 200 churches had been erected. Well might he call this, in announcing the fact, "an amount and continuance of pecuniary support altogether without a precedent in the history of Christian beneficence in this part of the British empire." To this he added a hope—but how differently fulfilled from the way he expected! "At the glorious era of the Church's reformation," he said, " it was the unwearied support of the people which, under God, finally brought her efforts to a triumphant issue. In this era of her extension—an era as broadly marked and as emphatically presented to the notice of the ecclesiastical historian as any which the Church is wont to consider as instances of signal revival and divine interposition—the support of the people will not be wanting, but by their devoted exertions, and willing sacrifices, and ardent prayers, they will testify how much they love the house where their fathers worshipped; how much they reverence their Saviour's command, that the very poorest of their brethren shall have the gospel preached to them."
While the indifference of Government upon the subject of church extension was thus felt in Scotland, a calamity of a different character was equally impending over the churches both of Scotland and England—a calamity that threatened nothing less than to disestablish them, and throw them upon the voluntary support of the public at large. Such was a part of the effects of the Reform Bill. It brought forward the Dissenters into place and power, and gave them a vantage ground for their hostility to all ecelesiastical establishments; and so well did they use this opportunity, that the separation of Church and State promised to be an event of no distant occurrence. Even Wellington himself, whose practised eye saw the gathering for the campaign, and whose stout heart was not apt to be alarmed at bugbears, thus expressed his sentiments on the occasion: "People talk of the war in Spain, and the Canada question, but all that is of little moment. The real question is, Church or no Church; and the majority of the House of Commons—a small majority, it is true, but still a majority—are practically against it." This majority, too, had already commenced its operations with the Church of Ireland, the number of whose bishops was reduced, and a large amount of whose endowments it was proposed to alienate to other purposes than the support of religion. Thus was that war begun which has continued from year to year, growing at each step in violence and pertinacity, and threatening the final eversion of the two religious establishments of Great Britain. The friends of the Establishment principle were equally alert in its defence; and among other institutions, a Christian Influence Society was formed, to vindicate the necessity and duty of State support to the national religion as embodied in the church of the majority of the people. It occurred to this society that their cause could be best supported by popular appeal on the part of a bold, zealous, eloquent advocate—one who had already procured the right to speak upon such a subject, and to whom all might gladly and confidently listen. And where could they find such an advocate? All were at one in the answer, and Dr. Chalmers was in consequence requested to give a course of public lectures in London upon the subject of Church Estab-
