There has been a great hubbub in the Scottish Free
Kirk this week, about Professor Robertson Smith,—a young Aberdeen Professor of great learning, of extraordinary orthodoxy, and of no common abilities, whose case has been already discussed in these columns, and is again discussed this week, in relation to the particular count on which the General Assembly have condemned him,—by the small majority of 23 (301 against 278),—in another column. Pro- fessor Robertson Smith was defended by Professor Rainy and some of the most orthodox of Free-Church divines, and by no unim- portant part of the lay element of the Assembly. Thus Mr. W. Colquhoun, of Rossdhu, wanted to know what all "the doost" was about. Professor Robertson Smith had maintained sedulously the
inspiration of Deuteronomy. He had, to be sure, a new idea of his own of the purpose and meaning of Deuteronomy, but such discussions were pure good. Like the shepherd who rebuked Lord Rntherfurd, for complaining of the east wind and the mist, in the words, "What ails ye, mon, at the wind, what ails ye at the mist? It slokena the grun', and it slokens the ewes, and malt than that, it's the wull o' God," Mr. Colquhoun r buked those who would put down new discussions as to the meaning and application of inspiration. Such discussions " sloken the grun'," and no doubt " sloken " too the minds of divinity scholars ;—and most certainly, in the present age, they are "the wull o' God."
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