Guthries of Forfarshire, was first domestic chaplain to the Earl of Mar, and then became a minister at Stirling; but, though he qualified himself according to the forms then required, he was deposed on the score of malignancy on the 14th of November 1648. At the restoration of King Charles II. he received valid ordination, and was made shortly after Bishop of this See, which he retained till his death, which took place in the beginning of the year 1677. He wrote memoirs of Scottish affairs from the year 1637 to the murder of King Charles I.

On the 7th of May 1677, William Lindsay, Rector of Perth, was consecrated Bishop here. He died in 1679.

Andrew Bruce, Archdeacon of St Andrews, was consecrated to this See in October 1679. In 1686, being strongly inimical to the Roman Catholics, he preached a remarkable sermon against Romanism and the repeal of the penal statutes, which was then a favourite measure with the court. This brought down the royal displeasure on him; and he was selected as the one, among three Bishops who had offended in a similar manner, for deprivation, which was immediately put in force. However, in May 1688, a conge d' elire was issued to the Chapter of the Diocese of Orkney, then vacant by the death of Murdoch Mackenzie, and a recommendation of Andrew, late Bishop of Dunkeld, to be by them elected, which took place accordingly. This new dignity he enjoyed but a short time, being deprived with the rest of his brethren, and died in 1700.

On the deprivation of Bishop Bruce in 1686, John Hamilton (son of John Hamilton of Blair, by Barbara Elphinstone his wife, daughter of James Lord Balmerino) was made Bishop of Dunkeld. He survived the Revolution, and died one of the ministers in Edinburgh, and subdean of the Chapel Royal.

Of the post-revolution Bishops who presided over the nominal See of Dunkeld, the first, as well as perhaps the most celebrated, was Dr Thomas Rattray of Craighall, in the county of Perth, who was elected by the Clergy of Dunkeld early in the year 1727, and consecrated at Edinburgh, on the 4th of June in that year, by Bishops Gadderar, Millar, and Cant. In 1739 he succeeded Bishop Freebairn as Primus, and died on the 12th of May 1743.

Mr Skinner, in his Ecclesiastical History, describes him as a man whom the Church will long look back to with a mixture of pleasure and regret; with pleasure, in the grateful remembrance of having had such a bishop, and with a deep regret for having been so soon deprived of him. The following are Bishop Rattray's principal literary works :

1. The ancient Liturgy of the Church of Jerusalem, being the Liturgy of St James, freed from all latter additions and interpolations of whatever kind, and so restored to its original purity, &c. &c., with an English translation and notes. London, 1744.

2. An Essay on the nature of the Church, and a review of the election of Bishops in the Primitive Church; together with some annexed dissertations. Edinburgh, 1728.

3. Some particular instructions concerning the Christian Covenant, and the Mysteries by which it is transacted and maintained; collected from the sacred Scriptures and earliest writers of the Christian Church, and from approved Divines of the Church of England; together with a question concerning such as have communicated, &c., without having been previously confirmed and an Essay on the nature of Man, as he is a creature endowed with reason, and thereby capable of religion. London, 1748.

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Many of Bishop Rattray's letters, sermons, and dissertations yet remain in manuscript, and most of them display much reading and sound judgment.

On the death of Bishop Rattray, the Clergy of Dunkeld elected Mr John Alexander, Presbyter at Alloa, to succeed him in the Episcopal Office; and accordingly, on the 9th of August in that year he was consecrated at Edinburgh, by Bishops Keith, White, Falconer, and Rait. The reputation of Bishop Alexander still lives in the Scottish Church, in which he continues to be spoken of by those traditionally acquainted with his character, as a person of apostolical simplicity, piety, and benevolence. He presided over this district for twenty-three years, and died in 1776.

After Bishop Alexander, Bishop Rose of Dunkeld took charge of the district of Dunkeld, and died in April 1791.

On the 20th of September 1792, Mr Jonathan Watson was consecrated to the Episcopal Office, at Stonehaven, by Bishops Skinner, Macfarlane, Abernethy Drummond, and Strachan, and appointed to the see or district of Dunkeld, in which he continued to exercise Episcopal functions till his death in 1808. Soon after the death of Bishop Watson, the Rev. Patrick Torry, who had previously officiated for some years in a large congregation at Peterhead in Aberdeenshire, was unanimously elected by the Clergy of Dunkeld, consecrated at Aberdeen on the 12th of October 1808, and immediately appointed to the charge of his important district, which he still holds, with the subsequent addition of two other dioceses, being now styled Bishop of St Andrews, Dunkeld, and Dunblane, and now, in

his 87th year, being the oldest prelate in the British Isles, if not in the Western Church altogether.

The Bishoprie of Dunkeld was once the most important in Scotland, but it experienced many diminutions, and shortly before the Revolution of 1688, was so ill endowed, that in 1685 there was an order from the king for the payment of £100 sterling to Bishop Bruce, evidently on account of the smallness of the Episcopal revenue.

The noble Cathedral is now in much the same condition as that of Dunblane, a grey and venerable ruin, with the exception of the chaneel, which has been "fitted up" for parochial presbyterian worship. This unhappy desecration, which cost somewhat between £5000 and £6000, a sum amply sufficient to have built a kirk on a fresh site, was the work of the Duke of Atholl above mentioned, with a small grant from the Exchequer; and greatly is it to be regretted, that that nobleman, whose magnificent notions were almost proverbial in the country, should have been so deficient in feeling and taste for matters Ecclesiastical, as to have committed such profanation.

THE SAYINGS OF GOOD MEN.

"My friend, thou hast deceived thyself. To pray at home is possible; but to pray as in the Church thou wouldst-where so many elders are assembled, where, on devotion's wing, ten thousand supplications ascend together-this is not possible. Thou canst not by thyself invoke thy Lord so fervently as when in company with thy brethren. Here there are superior incitements; the union of voices, the unity of hearts, the bonds of love, the supplications of the priest. For this purpose the ministers of heaven stand foremost, that the prayers of the multitude, inefficient in themselves, may be aided by their more powerful petitions, and be made acceptable to God. Ineffectual were the homily if unaccompanied by prayer; first prayer, and then instruction. Thus the apostles say, 'Let us persevere in prayer, and in the teaching of the word.' This is the conduct of Paul, who prays in the beginning of the epistles, that so the light of prayer, like a lamp, may usher in his discourse. If thou would accustom thyself to pray with fervency, thou wouldst not need the instructions of a fellow-mortal; for God himself, without human intervention, would illuminate thy soul. But if the prayer of a private person be of such exceeding benefit, much more the supplications of a multitude. This is manifest from the words of Paul-“ We trust that God, who

hath preserved us from so many deaths, will still preserve us while you co-operate in your petitions for us." It was thus that Peter escaped from prison. Numerous and fervent were the prayers which were offered up. Now if the prayer of Christians could avail so much, that it rescued from the prison that pillar of the Church, how wilt thou presume to despise its potency, and what excuse wilt thou have to offer? Listen unto God himself, who declares that a multitude with sincerity invoking him, can touch, can move him. For apologizing to Jonah, by reason of the gourd, he says, "Thou hast been sparing of the gourd, for which thou sufferedst no toil, which thou didst not rear; and shall not I spare Nineveh, that great city, in which reside more than twelve myriads of men?" He does not casually record their number, but that thou mayest know that the prayers of an united multitude have a wondrous influence.-Saint Chrysostom on the importance of Church Prayers.

VALUE AND SACREDNESS OF SUFFERING.

Though all meritorious sufferings were Christ's alone, yet did he bequeath to His Church a precious gift, which was to belong to all His more chosen vessels, even a certain residue of His own sufferings; their sufferings for Him and His body, the Church, he joins to His and accounts them His own; yea, they are His own, since He is persecuted in His members; He hungers, thirsts, is sick and in prison, in His members; the marks of the stripes, and the iron bonds are "the marks of the Lord Jesus," which they "bare about" them. And they rejoice, not in suffering only like Him, but that they are partakers of His sufferings; "that I may know," says St Paul, "the fellowship of His sufferings" (Phil. iii. 10), and " as the sufferings of Christ abound in us. (2 Cor. i. 5.) And St Peter, Rejoice, in as much as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings." (1 Peter iv. 13.) They are Christ's own sufferings, which overflow into them as true branches of the true Vine; His sufferings, in that they are borne through His spirit, in Him, for Him, by Him; they are fruits to the end of time, of His cross; they are images, and shadows, and reflections of that cross, shining in its glory, streaming down some of its lights upon us, tokens of its presence and power.-Dr Pusey.

"That saving grace which Christ originally is or hath for the general good of His whole Church, by Sacraments, He severally deriveth into every member thereof. We receive Jesus Christ in baptism once, as the first beginner; in the

Eucharist often, as being by continual degrees the finisher of our life.-Hooker.

Whoever wipes another's tear, lifts another's head, binds another's heart, performs religion's most beautiful rite, most decent and handsome ceremony.-Fawcett.

Too great earnestness and vehemency, and too greedy delight in bodily work and external doings, scattereth and loseth the tranquillity and calmness of the mind.-Leighton.

ECCLESIASTICAL VAGARIES.

CHURCH matters in Great Britain generally do not seem in a very flourishing condition. In Scotland we are seldom in want of a bone of contention, as there are always some individuals of that peculiar turn of mind, which prefers troubled to calm waters, and loves to wade through the bogs of contention in pursuit of some ignis fatuus, which, if caught, would prove about as valuable, as the fugitive physical deception known by that denomination. Latterly we have been amused with the little attempt to impose on us, as indigenous Scottish usages, some customs borrowed from English nonjurors in the beginning of the last century; and the cool assurance of this measure has caused no small stir in the Church, which we hope is subsiding. The most amusing incident in the latter part of this controversy was an ingenious attempt, by a jesuitical writer in an English journal, to make five priests constitute a majority in a diocese containing fourteen or fifteen incumbencies; but we trust that the whole dispute will rapidly be forgotten, and the "New Prayer-Book" consigned to dust and oblivion on the shelf, or transferred to that receptacle of things lost upon earth -the moon.

Among the events which more particularly concern our southern Sister, the Church of England, there is one, of which this country has been the scene, and to which we shall advert presently, but we would first direct attention to circumstances in the Church of England and connected with her. Melancholy is it, when enemies throng around, that bitterness and dissension should prevail within, giving occasion to adversaries to blaspheme, and to declare that the long bondage under which the Church has groaned has not yet taught her those Christian graces without which she cannot be fit for self government. We looked up to the Church unions as a great tower of strength, but alas! the bulwarks are crumbling from spontaneous dis