I believe that there are persons amongst us coming round to this opinion, and who are ready to believe that it is quite possible for Christians to exercise very friendly mutual relations in spiritual matters which constitute the essential articles of a common faith, whilst they are in practice separated on points of ecclesiastical order and of church government.  I am old, and shall not see it; but I venture to hope that, under the Divine blessing, the day will come when to Scotsmen it will be a matter of reminiscence that Episcopalians, or that Presbyterians of any denomination, should set the interests of their own communion above the exercise of that charity that for a brother’s faith “hopeth all things and believeth all things.”  Zeal in promoting our own Church views, and a determination to advance her interests and efficiency, need be no impediment to cultivating the most friendly feelings towards those who agree with us in matters which are essential to salvation and who, in their differences from us, are, I am bound to believe, as conscientious as myself.  Such days will come.

But now, to close my remarks on national peculiarities, with what I may term a practical and personal application.  We have in our later pages adopted a more solemn and serious view of past reminiscences as they bear upon questions connected with a profession of religion.  It is quite suitable then to recall the fact which applies individually to all our readers.  We shall ourselves each of us one day become subject to a “reminiscence” of others.  Indeed, the whole question at issue throughout the work takes for granted what we must all have observed to be a very favourite object with survivors—­viz. that the characters of various persons, as they pass away, will be always spoken of, and freely discussed, by those who survive them.  We recall the eccentric, and we are amused with a remembrance of their eccentricities.  We admire the wise and dignified of the past.  There are some who are recollected only to be detested for their vices—­some to be pitied for their weaknesses and follies—­some to be scorned for mean and selfish conduct.  But there are others whose memory is embalmed in tears of grateful recollection.  There are those whose generosity and whose kindness, whose winning sympathy and noble disinterested virtues are never thought upon or ever spoken of without calling forth a blessing.  Might it not, therefore, be good for us often to ask ourselves how we are likely to be spoken of when the grave has closed upon the intercourse between us and the friends whom we leave behind?  The thought might, at any rate, be useful as an additional motive for kind and generous conduct to each other.  And then the inquiry would come home to each one in some such form as this—­“Within the circle of my family and friends—­within the hearts of those who have known me, and were connected with me in various social relations—­what will be the estimate formed of me when I am gone?