These are two articles in _Recess Studies_ (1870), a volume edited by our distinguished Principal, Sir Alexander Grant.

One essay is by Sir Alexander himself, upon the "Endowed Hospitals of Scotland;" the other by the Rev.Dr.Wallace of the Greyfriars, upon "Church Tendencies in Scotland." It would be quite irrelevant for me to enlarge here upon the merits of those articles.

No one could study them attentively without being impressed with the ability and power displayed in them by the authors, their grasp of the subjects, and their fair impartial judgment upon the various questions which come under their notice.
From these able disquisitions, and from other prognostics, it is quite evident that sounder principles of political economy and accurate experience of human life show that much of the old Scottish hospital system was quite wrong and must be changed.

Changes are certainly going on, which seem to indicate that the very hard Presbyterian views of some points connected with Church matters are in transition.

I have elsewhere spoken of a past sabbatarian strictness, and I have lately received an account of a strictness in observing the national fast-day, or day appointed for preparation in celebrating Holy Communion, which has in some measure passed away.