position with some of the most artistic nations of the earth, coming down to our own times without the slightest tendency to artistic or constructive ability. The modern Jew will buy, sell, or exchange commodities, but he has no tendency to execute a day's work. He will deal in any thing from lucifer matches up to the precious metal, gold; he will sell oranges in the Strand or Fleet Street, and be every thing as a dealer up to Baron Rothschild, but he will not file his hands with work, nor will he confuse his head by originating or arranging a complicated structure of any kind, for it is not in his nature to do either. Nay, going even back to the remotest period of their history, the Jewish nation, if we except the Old Testament, and the Talmud, had no literature, and these works themselves sprung up only in connection with their being a people aboriginally deeply imbued with religious sentiment.

Whence then arose the religious character of the ancient Hebrews, for that of the modern race seems to be altogether absorbed in the love of gold? Baron Rothschild, indeed, with his millions, is the culminating fact in modern Jewish history, and he is the true high priest of their nation. The modern Jew has altogether forgotten the God of his forefathers, for he has unconsciously to himself transferred his worship from Jehovah to a golden calf. But we must not forget the question, whence came the religious character of the ancient Hebrews? Why, a review of these few brief observations, forms an answer to the enquiry. The ancient Hebrew, though possessed of a powerful intellectual, moral, and religious nature, was instinctively and aboriginally wanting in artistic skill and ability, and having thus few or no earthly objects that intervened between him and Jehovah, he saw the latter as it were face to face. His mind was distracted by no foreign or irrelevant ideas, and he clung with all the instincts of his race to his Father in heaven,-to the ancient Hebrew, the only visible object in his large field of view. Thus it appears that religious sentiment was natural to the ancient Hebrew, for constructive power being somewhat wanting, the cultivation of religion became the culminating fact in the nation's history. Nor does this detract from the fact that the Hebrew race were God's peculiar people, but rather confirms and adds to the force of the Bible view of their being so.

We have to apologise to our readers for treating so discursively of a matter that has merely been suggested by some of our author's observations, but the view taken appeared to us so important and germain to the question in hand, that we felt it our duty to throw it out as a mere matter of speculation. There are numerous other points hinted at throughout these Essays, that are equally original and suggestive, but time and space forbid us to pursue these speculations farther. Let it suffice to say that the remainder of the subjects treated of by our author are all such as occupy at present a large share of public attention, and that he treats of them in a manner as original as it is striking. One peculiarity that distinguishes Dr Brown above all the writers with whom we are acquainted, is that he has few or no prejudices. Though disagreeing with a particu

lar thinker or class of thinkers, he never treats their facts or opinions with disrespect. He examines them with all the coolness and reserve of a philosopher, and though differing widely from them, he lays down his views and opposition with all the calmness and dignity of one that has no other end to serve but the realization of truth. It is this feature in our author's character that especially fitted him for the sphere of original observation. A desire above all things for the discovery of law or truth, forms the most conspicuous element of his nature. He is neither carried away by a love of subtlety, nor by the parade of a fantastic and idle rhetoric. He never for a moment sacrifices sense for the display of metaphorical or ornamental language, although his style is distinguished by an eloquence that has fallen to the share of but few, and these volumes, selected from the rest of his productions, establish incontestably that our author is not only one of the most accomplished men of his time, but one of the most original thinkers and prose writers, that his country has produced.

REPORT OF COMMITTEE OF PERTH PRESBYTERY ON SESSION RECORDS.

A DIVERSITY of practice has been found to exist in the mode of authenticating Session Records, within the Presbytery of Perth, and a doubt has been expressed as to the proper officials who ought to subscribe the Session Minutes. By some it is held that the Moderator alone should subscribe the Minutes. By others it is thought that the Clerk is the proper person to authenticate them, and by a third section it is maintained that the subscriptions of both Moderator and Clerk are essential to the validity of the Minutes. By few is it now supposed that a Minute unsubscribed, though written into a book bearing the title or designation of a Minute Book, can bear any faith in judgment.

The Minutes of civil corporate bodies are authenticated in the manner provided by statute or charter, and the general rule in these and of minutes of public meetings regulated by common law, is for the chairman or preses of the meeting to subscribe the original minute, and the extracts or certified copies of Minutes are issued and subscribed by the Clerk alone.

In the recent Treatise on the Law of Evidence by Mr Dickson, the Law is thus stated:-§ 1173, "It seems not to be settled whether subscription by the proper officer is essential at common law to the admissibility of Minutes of public bodies. It is thought not to be indispensible that they be signed by the person who presided at the meeting to which the Minutes apply, provided they are subscribed by the Preses of that at which they were read over and approved of, and when Minutes are taken down in scroll, the fair copy extended by the clerk and signed by the preses after the dissolution of the meeting, is admissible."

Regularity and uniformity of subscription in ecclesiastical records becomes of greater importance, seeing that they frequently affect civil rights, and have to be given in evidence in civil and criminal courts, and that it has been found that parole evidence is not admissible to prove the actings of a kirk-session. In a criminal trial, an extract from Session Books was refused to be received, because subscribed by the clerk on the last page only, though the number of pages were numbered, thereupon it was asked at the Session Clerk whether a person had not been suspended from church privileges, but this was refused as only competent to be proved by the Minutes, or an extract. (Lords Mackenzie and Medwyn in the case of Hugh Fraser, in Justicary Court; 2 Swinton, 443.

The irregularity in keeping ecclesiastical records have frequently given occasion to much discussion in civil courts, and several of such disputes have been carried to the House of Peers.

Ecclesiastical courts, from the session upwards, frequently act judicially, and therefore the act 1686, c. 3, has been supposed to apply to them, and which requires that "all interlocutors pronounced by the Lords of Council and Session, and all other judges within the kingdom, shall be signed by the presidents of the court, or judge pronouncer thereof." The presiding judges in the Inner House of the Court of Session subscribe all interlocutors, adding the initials I.P.D., (in presentia dominorum). The president of an ecclesiastical court is of course the Moderator.

The committee may, for the information of the Presbytery, very shortly notice the leading Ecclesiastical cases in the civil courts bearing on this matter.

The earliest in date, is that Dr Dickson v. the Heritors of Newlands, 6 Feb. 1768. (Morison's Decisions, 7464). Dr Dickson was deposed from the Ministry by the presbytery of Peebles, and another Minister appointed in his stead. Dr Dickson nevertheless charged the Heritors to pay his stipend. The Heritors suspended, but the Court of Session found him entitled to his stipend, as the Minute of Presbytery deposing him, was unsigned. Lord Hailes remarked, "Neither the law nor practice of the Church allows the sentences of ecclesiastical judges to remain unsigned." It is proper to add that the General Assembly, in the same year, upon the report of a large committee, selected from every Synod of their number, including the Lord Advocate and Solicitor-General of the day, found "that the Register or Book was now attested and signed by the Moderators of the Presbytery of Peebles for several years past, as also, revised, approved, and attested, by the Synod," and therefore confirmed the act of deposition, and ordered the Procurator to appear in any after suit for the interests of the Church. The deposed minister took no farther proceedings. It would appear that the clerk had sent up to the Court of Session, the unsigned scroll Minutes, instead of the proper Records into which the Minutes had subsequently been engrossed and subscribed.

The next case worthy of notice is that of the Heritors of Kilberry. That was the case of a libel against a schoolmaster under the statute

43 Geo. III., cap. 54, by which act the judgment of the Presbytery is declared "to be final, without appeal to, or review by, any court civil or ecclesiastical." The Presbytery of Kintyre deposed the schoolmaster, but did not commit any of the evidence to writing. The Court of Session, on that ground, quashed the sentence, as unwarranted and informal, and the House of Lords affirmed the judgment, 12th June, 1829. 3 and 4 Shaw and Dunlop, No. 337 and 150, Wilson and Shaw's Appeal Cases, Vol. 3. p. 441.

as

In the case of Dunbar, under the same Act of Parliament, the Presbytery of Auchterarder, in 1847, deposed the Schoolmaster of Madderty. The Presbytery in that case took the evidence in writing, but the original Minutes of evidence were not authenticated by the Moderator. In a Reduction, Lord Ivory quashed the sentence, proceeding on evidence not duly authenticated in terms of law." The Presbytery acquiesced in this judgment, and the schoolmaster afterwards prosecuted them for damages, for wrongous deposition; but which action was dismissed in respect that malice was not alleged. Another case also had its origin under the Schoolmaster's Act. Ferguson, Schoolmaster of the Parish of Kirkpatrick-Durham, was deposed by the Presbytery of Dumfries. He also sought redress in

the Court of Session. One of the grounds of this action was, that the several minutes were not subscribed at the time by the Moderator, and that one minute was still unsigned. The practice appeared to have been for the clerk to write out a scroll minute and to read it over engrossed, at the next meeting of Presbytery, when it was signed by the Moderator in the chair for the time being. Lord Ivory remitted to Principal Lee, as Clerk of the General Assembly, and to Mr Bell, the Procurator for the Church, to report on "the practice of church judicatories in regard to the form and mode of authentication of minutes." An elaborate report was given in, shewing a great diversity of practice, and that in some cases sentences of deposition had been pronounced, although the minute containing the same was unsigned. Lord Ivory reported the case to the Court, expressing a strong opinion against the regularity of the proceedings of the Presbytery. The Court, by a majority, sustained the deposition, 26th June 1850, (22 Jurist, 499). Lord Fullarton strongly dissented, because of the want of proper authentication of the minutes. judgment on appeal was affirmed by the Lord Chancellor, 28th May 1852, (24 Jurist, 473), but chiefly on the ground that the minutes, as then appearing on the record, were regularly subscribed by the Moderator.

The

The last case in which the objection was taken, is the Schoolmaster of Rogart, deposed by the Presbytery of Dornoch. The scroll minutes were subscribed on every page by the Moderator, but had not been engrossed into the minute book. The Court disregarded the objection that the scroll had not been also subscribed by the clerk. 29th Nov. 1850,-Sutherland, (Jurist).

The committee have referred to these leading cases in the civil court as indicating the necessity of having some fixed rule of authen

ticating the minutes of kirk-sessions; because though applicable to Presbyteries, yet the same rule ought to apply to all ecclesiastical judicatories. They shall now direct their attention to the law of the church so far as it appears from the records of Assembly.

In the interesting report on the ancient registers of the church, in the year 1638, under the 18th article the committee report that "it is certain and notour to all those who are intrusted with the keeping of the public records of the kingdom that the same are never subscribed by the clerk." And again under article 19th, they magnify the authority of the register over any extract, "although the registers be written with an obscure unknown hand, and unsubscribed." This had reference to an age when it was truly said, men were more skilled in wielding their swords than their pens.

The act 1698, requires Synod books to be signed both by moderator and clerk thereof. The act, 16th Feb. 1700, sets forth "the great import to this church that all its registers be exact and well kept, do require all provincial synods and presbyteries to be careful in revising the registers of the judicatories, under their immediate inspection," and the act gives a form of attestation to be signed by the clerk, but is silent as to the authentication of the minutes themselves. The act, 1706, is in the following words, "The General Assembly recommend it to all the judicatories of this Church to take special care that the registers be correctly written, and that they allow no blottings or interlinings therein, and that if anything shall happen to be blotted out as superfluous, that it be marked on the margin how many words or lines are blotted out, and that it was done by the authority of the judicatory, and that it be subscribed by the moderator and clerk, and that if anything be omitted, that it be written upon the margin and subscribed by the clerk of the judicatory.

The act, 1713, enjoins observance of the act 1698, and enjoins that "synod books be completely filled up and signed by the moderator and clerk, and that synods see that presbytery books be punctually produced, revised, and attested."

The acts, 1839, 1840, and 1841, as to the forms of commissions to representative elders, gives a form of minute of kirk-session certifying the elder, and which is required to be subscribed by the moderator and clerk.

In the Report by Principal Lee and Mr Bell, before mentioned, it is stated that the Synod of Lothian and Tweedale in 1812, when attesting the registers of the Presbytery of Edinburgh, animadverted on the fact that each minute was not severally attested by the mode rator and clerk, but only at the end of each half year, when the attestations contained the number of pages thus attested. The Pres bytery in consequence of this appointed a large committee of their number, (two of whom were then clerks of the General Assembly), and who reported in favour of the practice "as sanctioned by the ancient and established usage of the presbytery," and resolved to continue the same.

Dr Hill states in his valuable book, that it is believed not to be