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THE SITUATION. 21 After sermon, I made an address, and they resolved to petition —to cry aloud against this act of new and most unrighteous oppression. Some of the men were clear for fixing in the old Covenanting way ! " What madmen these ministers were to crave and servo this interdict! It is the best pocket-pistol I ever carried. I hope they will complain. I have no avidity for a prison (and it were wrong to court the personal glory of such suffering), but no man can tell the good such violence on their part would do our cause. The only thing I would be afraid of would bo a violent explosion of public feeling. Major Stewart, a justice of the peace, an influential man in this quarter, and a strong friend of ours, has written to Lord John Russell, telling him that, as an old field-officer who had often charged on a battlefield at the head of the grenadiers, he has no feiir for himself; but warning the Government that, unless they restrain these courts, and take immediate steps to protect the liberties and ministers of the Church, he anticipates here nothing but some fierce explosion." (To Mrs. Guthrie.) Mr. G-uthrie returned from Strathbogie in the end of February, 1840, and on the 20th March we find him thus explaining the situation:—"The Church cannot stand where she is. The courts of law have declared the Veto Act illegal. We think that they are wrong—that they have gone beyond their jurisdiction —that they have left their own province and trenched upon ours; and that we might justly address those judges 1n the words of the priests to Uzziah the king, 'Get ye out of the temple.' But while, on the one Towards the close of the year, the presentee to Marnochraised an action in the Court of Session, asking that the majority of the Presbytery of Strathbogie should be o...