to which we are to trace that notion of political identity between a British representative and his constituents, which has taken hold of some minds, and from which such serious consequences are deduced.

In commercial matters, when the term representative is used, it denotes very much the same thing with an ageut, who is empowered to negotiate some piece of business for us, and to whom we have so committed the management of the affair, as that we become responsible for all pecuniary consequences. We may not be morally responsible for the conduct of one whom we have employed to act for us as our substitute, inasmuch as we may have been deceived and overreached by him; but pecuniary responsibility in such a case is as unlimited as are the powers with which we have invested him. We have given him a commission to act in a matter for us, and though his acts may not be ours in such a sense as to involve us in the guilt of his conduct, if that conduct be contrary to what we had reason to expect; yet, so far as our legal responsibility to our fellow-men is concerned, we are amenable, and very properly so, up to the extent of the commission he has received from us, And here again we have good reason for saying, founded on the style in which we have heard many speak on this subject, that it is notions growing out of this sort of representative responsibility, transferred into the parliamentary region, that make persons feel as if there were a political identity of the same kind as the commercial one, between a representative and those whom he represents in the Commons' House of Parliament.

In legal matters an attorney is the representative of his client or employer; and in this case the vicarious principle enters very deeply, and carries in it much responsibility. In social life we are accustomed speaking in a sense somewhat looser of representative men-men, that is, who are gifted with powers that enable them to speak out the thoughts that other men are thinking, but are not able to express-men who take the lead in embodying the feelings, and realising the tendencies and views, of the times in which they live.

There are a variety of other senses in which the term representative is used, all of them, or almost all of them, having shades of meaning peculiar to themselves; but, without going farther into such investigations, it must, I should think, be evident that it is not through a process of inquiry into the meanings of one or more words that we are to expect to find out the principle of representation, that has such a magnificent exemplification in the British Parliament.

How, then, (and this leads us back to the question a little age proposed), how are we to ascertain the nature of this principle?

We are to do so by looking as well as we can at facts that are enacted before our eyes, in connection with the election of representatives, and in the actual working of the House of Commons. For assisting us, in rightly interpreting these facts, it will be useful to examine the Writ that comes down to sheriffs, authorising them to take the necessary steps for the election of a member for a county, or a city, or a borough; it will be well also to acquaint ourselves with the singular and most interesting history of the representative principle, as gradually unfolded in Britain during hundreds of years past, up to the present day; in the same connection, it will be somewhat helpful to look with an intelligent eye into such works on the British Constitution as those of De Lolme, Judge Blackstone, and Lord Brougham. It will also contribute to the same result if we get a little acquainted with May's Privileges of Parliament, and Wordsworth's Law of Elections. By no other methods that I know of, save by such as these, can any one learn for himself what the principle of representation really is, as that principle is exemplified in the British House of Commons. I cannot pretend to any of the qualifications necessary for enabling one to speak with authority on this subject. I cannot even lay claim to the information that would warrant me to speak with the decision of one who was conscious of being the possessor of broad intelligence in regard to all matters that might be fitted to throw light on this subject. I speak with the diffidence that befits an inquirer; yet with the confidence, mingled with caution, of one who has examined a little into the subject, and who does not wish to go a step beyond the point that his inquiries entitle him to occupy.

A Representative then in the Commons' House of Parliament, let me say generally, is just a British legislator. The mode of his election to this function, or the particular persons by whom he is elected, is a mere circumstance, not at all entering into the principle of his representative character. He was a representative before the period of the Reform Bill, when the electors consisted of a very few persons, quite as much as he is a representative now. And, though, by the passing of another Reform Bill, the franchise were conferred upon every householder in the land, instead of, as at present, every ten-pound householder, it would not, in the slightest, affect the representative character that always belonged to a member of the House of Commons, or alter, by a hair's-breadth, his representative standing in that House.

The theory is that the whole country be represented on the floor of Parliament. And to realise this, the whole country has been divided into counties, boroughs, and cities, and persons are chosen to represent these, so that the various interests of the nation may be duly considered, and no part of them lost sight of. The representatives, however, from the different parts of the land, are not so many delegates or agents sent, under responsibility to those who have deputed them, to look after, respectively, these parts of the land alone. They are rather sent to consult with one another" as representatives of the same community, and to devise the measures best adapted for securing the interests of the whole." They are not like ambassadors sent under special instructions to treat with others, with an exclusive respect to the good of those who have sent them, as if they were representatives of so many little independent communities or states. They are rather legislators, bound to act upon their own judgment and responsibility, and to contemplate, not the good of any one locality, but the good of the whole land. They are, of course, under obligation to consider the interests of the portions of the country that they respectively represent. But they are to do so only in subordination to the good of the whole.

This legislative character, exercised freely and independently by the representatives of the nation, after holding parliamentary deliberations and consultations with one another, supposes them to be the possessors, for the time being, of the entire political power of the people. And this, in point of fact, is the case. When the nation assembles, in its different districts, and chooses persons to represent it in Parliament, the popular power passes from the hands of the people into the hands of those chosen by them, and remains in the possession of those who have been entrusted with it, till that Parliament expires, or is dissolved by the crown; when it again falls back into the hands of the people. Lord Brougham calls special attention to this feature of the representative principle as exemplified among us, a principle that he says had no exemplification in the ancient governments of Greece or Rome, and that he characterises as "the grand invention of modern times," and "upon which our constitutional system is founded." An essential feature of this system, he affirms is, "that the power of the people should be parted with, and given over, for a limited period, to the deputy chosen by the people; and that he should perform that part in the government, which, but for this transfer would have been performed by the people themselves." "It is not, he adds, a representation, if the constituents so far retain a control as to act for themselves. If they interfere directly, and take the power out of his hands, not only is the main object of representation defeated, but a conflict and a confusion is introduced that makes the representation rather prejudicial than advantageous."

These general remarks lay a foundation for the following observations, bearing more particularly on the purpose for which we are instituting this inquiry.

1. A member of Parliament is held to represent the entire community, to watch over whose interests he is chosen, so as to prevent their being overlooked in the national legislative assembly. He does not represent the rich to the exclusion of the poor, the learned to the exclusion of the illiterate, the powerful to the exclusion of the weak, those in mature and middle life to the exclusion of the aged and the young, the electors to the exclusion of the non-electors. represents the entire people in the city, or borough, or county for which he is appointed. Accordingly in the writ to the sheriff on a general election, the

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'knights" chosen for the counties are said to be "for themselves and the comnalty of the same county," and the citizens and burgesses chosen for cities and boroughs, to be "for themselves and the commonalty of the said cities and boroughs respectively." Agreeably to this, when a vacancy occurs by death, or otherwise, in the writ for the new election which is sent down, it is stated that by means of the death of the representative formerly chosen, " our subjects of the said CITY are deprived of one citizen to treat for the benefit of the said city, in our said Parliament."

2. A member of Parliament, while representing the whole city or borough for which he acts, is nevertheless not chosen by the whole, but only by those on whom, in its wisdom, the legislature has conferred this privilege.

He may indeed be chosen at the hustings on the day appointed for nomination, by a mere proposer and seconder, without any appeal to the body of electors. But when a poll is demanded, in consequence of there being opposing candidates, and a contest takes place, then the duty of deciding who the representative shall be, devolves on those who have been by the legislature constituted electors; and who, under a sense of responsibility, ought to exercise this privilege, not for their personal benefit, but as a trust reposed in them for the common good.

The method for choosing parliamentary representatives has varied at different periods in the history of the country. It has partaken, sometimes more and sometimes less, of a popular character. In our own day a great change in regard to the franchise has taken place. By the Reform Act of 1832, it was placed on a much wider basis than it had been before; and this privilege may soon be still more widely extended. The principle, with liberal statesmen, seems to be to extend this principle as rapidly as the virtue and good order of the people point them out to be capable of using it with discretion and wisdom.

3. The exercise of the elective franchise does not form any special political connection between the representative and those who have exercised it, as if he, in any sense, represented them more than the other members of the community. I can find no foundation for this idea either in the writ of election, or in the writings of those who have made the British Constitution their study, but the

reverse.

What then is the position held by electors, as distinguished from non-electors, in the constitution? It is just that of deciding in a contest, who, in their judgment, is the best qualified for performing the functions of a representative. The legislature, as we have just seen, has judged that the best method of ascertaining this at present is, not by appealing to every individual in the city, or borough, or county; but to those in the one or the other who, from their social position, may be supposed to be most fitted, and most likely to make a judicious choice. The day is likely to come very soon when the electors will be greatly increased, and when the appeal will be made to a much more numerous portion of the community than at present. But as yet an appeal is made to those who are regarded, from their standing in society, to be the best educated and most intelligent. No idea, however, is given by any writer on the British Constitution that we know of, that the representative stands to those who elected him in any political relation in which he does not stand to the city or borough for which he is the representative. The electors cannot recall him any more than the non-electors. They cannot bring him to account for his parliamentary doings in any other way than by bringing the voice of public opinion to bear on his conduct. They have no power over him whatever beyond that of refus ing to elect him again. Their power begins and ends, and their connection with him, as distinguished from other members of the community, commences and closes, when they have said, by electing him, that they regard him as a fitting person to represent the community in Parliament.

But is there, it may still be eagerly asked, no special relation at all between a representative and those who have done him the honour of electing him to a seat in Parliament? There may be the relation of friendship, the relation of respect on the one side and the cherishing of gratitude on the other; there is certainly the relation of responsibility; but anything of the nature of political

identity, springing out of the act of election, as if the representative stood afterwards to those who had performed this act in any closer political relation than that which connected him with the other members of the community is, in my humble opinion, a fancy existing only in the mind of him who entertains it, not a fact in the actual system of things.

4. Neither in theory nor practice, as far as I know, is there any such thing in Great Britain, within the whole range of civil affairs, legislative or administrative, as one individual taking an oath for another,-as, in a solemn matter of conscience such as this, representative being accepted in the stead of personal identity.

I am not aware that the idea has been even entertained, much less discussed, by any party or denomination in the land. The Jews have shewn that they have some respect for an oath. They could not take the oath required by a 29 and representative, because it was imposed "on the faith of a Christian; hence they had to sacrifice the privilege of sitting in Parliament. But it never entered their mind that they could not, on that account, vote for a Christian, who, of course, was not deterred by the consideration that constrained them to stand aloof; they never dreamed that they swore the oath through their representatives; and no one, I presume, ever told them so.

The Papists, before the passing of the Roman Catholic Relief Bill, could not take the oath at that time required by Parliament, requiring them as it did to affirm the idolatry of the Mass; and hence they were shut out from the legis lature. But they never hesitated, in consequence of this, to vote for Protestants; it never occurred to themselves, nor was it suggested to them by any one else, that they were in effect taking the oath that the person whom they might elect had to take; and that therefore voting for a Member of Parliament was the same thing as if they were themselves taking the oath that their representative had to take.

through his reThis, I at once those who hold Truth rests on

The Quakers reckon it wrong to swear any oath at all; and hence the affirmation of a Quaker is accepted instead of his oath. But who ever heard of a quaker refusing to take part in a political election, except in the way of sending one of his own brethren to Parliament. The Quaker cannot swear; but he never imagines that he is violating his own principles by voting for a man who can conscientiously take an oath, and who, in point of fact, does so. The truth is, that this opinion of an elector swearing the oath presentative is not met with beyond the circle of our Church. allow is no argument against the soundness of the opinion: for it, however few, may be right, and the many may be wrong. evidence, not on authority; and evidence is weighed, rather than numbered. Still a point of this kind, that is no doctrine of theology, that can only be decided by looking into what constitutional writers say, as to the position of a British representative, ought not to be hastily adopted; or, if adopted, ought not, unless there be strong evidence to sustain it, to be tenaciously clung to. It appears to me to have been somehow or other taken for granted among us, in consequence of its seeming to fall in with, and to suit our general position as a Church, though there are few things of which I am more certain than that it cannot be said to form any integral part of the great principles on which our Church is based. There may be other and deeper reasons why we cannot take part in political elections in consistency with our principles, but I feel very sure that the terror of taking the oath to government representatively, is not a sufficient one.

I may perhaps have a little more to say on this general subject before having done with it. In the mean time, so far as I have gone, I have endeavoured distinctly to state the opinion I hold, together with some of the grounds of it. This opinion, however, I am sensible, may be wrong. I may have been looking at it from a false point of light, or through the mists of prejudice, and hence may have come to a mistaken conclusion. That is quite possible, though I can. not bring my mind to think that it is so in fact. But whether I be right on wrong is a mere matter of individual judgment, to be met with only by argument and persuasion. It is not at all a matter for udicial discipline. There is, in

fact, nothing grave or serious about it. Even if I be wrong in the view I take as to the political relation between a representative and his constituents, it is not an error for which any Church on earth has a heaven-derived right to deprive me of any Christian office or Christian privilege that I hold of and under Christ, as my Head, and the Head of his Church. Surely if there be any matter regarding which diversity of view may be tolerated, without the slightest violation of brotherly confidence and concord, it is just such a matter as we have now been discussing.

However, I must conclude at present. Humbly apologising for the unexpected length of my letter, I am, my Dear Sir, yours, &c., JOHN M'DERMID.

Reviews and Notices.

Christ, the Light of the World. By RUDOLPH BESSER, D.D. Translated from the German, by M. G. HUXTABLE. Edinburgh: T. & T. CLARK. 1861. Pp. 463.

THE valuable translations of Foreign Theological works which have been issued by the Messrs Clark, have done very much to familiarise the Churches in Britain with the currents of religious thinking on the continent of Europe, and more especially in Germany. While the works so translated are not all of equal value, there is scarcely one of them which does not amply repay careful perusal, and add materially to that stock of exegetical knowledge which is necessary to the "rightly dividing of the word of truth." The volume before us is, in many respects, one of great value, manifesting intense reverence for the words of Jesus, and searching out, with an earnest, loving spirit, the great practical duties which "the Master" teaches. In many of the briefer expository notes we are strongly reminded of Bengel, whose every word is pregnant with meaning. Thus, on John viii. 9-"And they which heard it, being convicted by their own consciences, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last," the following excellent reason is given for the order of the procession:-"The eldest, old sinners that they were, began first to go out; their register of sins was the longest, and they had no desire to expose themselves to the shame of having particular items in that register pointed out by the Lord's finger. But,' whither shall I go from thy Spirit; whither shall I flee from thy presence?" Again: "And Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst." "The stones of her accusers had spared her, and she might easily have slipped away; but the crushing, overwhelming stone of her own accusing conscience is raised against her, and it is only with the man who has protected her from the stones of the Pharisees that she knows of any refuge from this stone also, which threatens to crush her with merited destruction."

There is but one drawback to the recommendation which we give to this excellent volume. The view, viz., which Dr Besser holds and expresses in reference to the sacraments. The following sentence will put our readers in possession of these views:-"The birth to life in the kingdom of God, as well as the nourishment of this new life, are each of them a sacramental mystery; the former takes place in the sacrament of holy baptism, the latter in the sacrament of the altar. By baptism we enter into the kingdom of God, and by the Lord's supper those who have entered remain in the fellowship of the kingdom." This is very plainly teaching the doctrine of baptismal regeneration on the one hand, and connecting what is said upon the 6th chapter of the gospel with the latter part of the above sentence, of consubstantiation on the other. The value of the exposition would have been much enhanced, and the danger of false teaching considerably obviated, by a few notes from the pen of the trauslator, who otherwise has done his work well, rendering into pure and idiomatic English the eloquent sentences of the Lutheran divine.

The Life and Times of George Lawson, D.D. By Rev. JOHN MACFARLANE, LL.D. Edinburgh; Wm. Oliphant & Co. 1862. Pp. 480.

We have often, in perusing "Lawson on the Proverbs," felt an intense desire to know something of the life of one who appeared to have entered more fully into

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