Page:Sketches of the History of the Church of Scotland.djvu/8

iv A short extract from the latter portion of the Lecture was read at a crowded meeting of at least a thousand Church people, mostly composed, the writer was glad to see, as being something hitherto unknown in Edinburgh, of working men and women, many of the latter with babies in their arms, in the Queen Street Hall, on the evening of the 13th of October last; on which occasion, the honour was done to the Lecturer by over-partial friends, of requesting him to allow the Paper in its entirety to be printed. Having given his consent, he has accordingly prepared it for the press making it, by certain alterations and additions better fitted, he would fain hope, for the purposes for which the wish was expressed; namely, the defence of the Scottish Church, at certain critical and crucial periods of her history, from the misrepresentations and calumnies under which she has long and largely suffered, and is still suffering; and for the enlightenment, it may be, of her humbler members on some disputed principles and facts. A. R.

, 1882.