the decline of his days, the Spanish and Italian languages, that he might study
the proper authorities from their original sources. While Dr. M'Crie was thus
occupied, the bill introduced in 1829 for the emancipation of Roman Catholics
from political restrictions, and their admission into places of authority and trust,
was passed. It is perhaps unnecessary to add, that one who had studied and
written as he had done, was entirely opposed to the measure. He not only
thought it unsafe to concede such privileges, in a Protestant country, to men
doing homage to a foreign ecclesiastical power and a hostile creed, but he was
also of opinion that by such concessions our country abandoned the solemn
covenants to which it had pledged itself since the Reformation, and forfeited
the privileges which it enjoyed as the head of European Protestantism. In
the old covenanting spirit, he carried the subject to the pulpit, where it had
but too much right to enter, and in his lectures on the book of Ezra, where it
could be appropriately introduced, he uttered his prophetic warnings, "We
have been told from a high quarter," he said, "to avoid such subjects, unless we wish to rekindle the flames of Smithfield, now long forgotten. Long forgotten! where forgotten? In heaven? No. In Britain? God forbid! They
may be forgotten at St. Stephen's or Westminster Abbey, but they are not
forgotten in Britain. And if ever such a day arrives, the hours of Britain's
prosperity have been numbered." He drew up a petition against the measure, which was signed by 13,150 names, but this, like other petitions of the same
kind, was ineffectual. The bill was passed, and silly, duped, disappointed
Britain is now ready, like the Roman voter in favour of Coriolanus, to exclaim, "An’ it were to do again—but no matter!"
The career of Dr. M'Crie was now drawing to a termination. His literary labours, especially in the lives of Knox and Melville, combined with his extreme care that every idea which he gave forth to the public, and every sentence in which it was embodied, should be worthy of those important subjects in which he dealt—all this, connected, with the daily and almost hourly avocations of his ministerial office, and the numerous calls that were made upon him, in consequence of his interference with the great public movements of the day, had reduced him to the debility and bodily ailments of "threescore and ten," while as yet he was ten years short of the mark, But his was a mind that had never rested, and that knew not how to rest. In 1827 he had enjoyed the satisfaction, after much labour and anxiety, of seeing a union effected between the church party to which he belonged, and the body who had seceded from the Burgher and Antiburgher Synods in 1820, under the name of Protesters; and in 1830 his anxieties were excited, and his pen employed, in endeavours to promote a union between his own party, now greatly increased, and the Associate Synod of Original Burghers. Many may smile at these divisions as unnecessary and unmeaning, and many may wonder that such a mind as that of Dr. M'Crie should have been so intent in reconciling them. But religious dissension is no triviality, and the bond of Christian unity is worth any sacrifice short of religious principle; and upon this subject, therefore, the conscientious spirit of Dr. M'Crie was as anxious as ever was statesman to combine jarring parties into one, for the accomplishment of some great national and common benefit. While thus employed, a heavy public bereavement visited him with all the weight of a personal affliction; this was the death of the Rev. Dr. Andrew Thomson, who, in the full strength and vigour of his days, suddenly fell down and expired upon the threshold of his home, which he was just about to enter.
