President of West Coast Mission’s Comment on Hebridean Religion.—Mr. William Clarke Reid, President of the Glasgow and West Coast Mission, reporting on a visit he paid to the Mission’s stations in the Hebrides during the summer is reported as having said: “I do think that there is a great field all over the Hebrides, not excepting our own missionary districts, whereby the gospel of cheerfulness and laughter may be told to the people more often than it is now. My impression was that with our good friends up there religion is a terribly gloomy thing. You dare not smile. There is something wrong when you find that two sets of men, who work together in the fields and in the fishing boats during the week, will not look at each other on a ‘Sunday’ because one is a Free Presbyterian and the other is a ‘Wee Free.'” To say the least this statement is neither just to Free Presbyterians or Free Churchmen. It is statements such as these by persons paying flying visits to the Highlands that are calculated to do a vast amount of mischief. The gloom of Highland religion has become a pet topic with a certain class of people. Our experience of the religion of true believers in the Highlands and Islands is that it will compare favourably with that of God’s people in other parts in consecration and cheerfulness. Mr. Reid’s words do serious injustice to Free Presbyterian and Free Church fishermen and the next time he visits the Islands he should be asked to produce proof or withdraw his statements. When Christ came it was not with the gospel of cheerfulness and laughter but with the good news of the grace of God.