Pursuant to the following advertisement, a Public Meeting was held in the Scots Schoolroom, on Tuesday, the 25th instant, which was addressed by the Rev. Messrs. Andrew Mitchell Ramsay and Andrew Ross, and a series of resolutions unanimously passed in furtherance of the object.

A Meeting will take place (D.V.), this evening at seven o'clock, in the Scots Schoolroom, on the hill, with the view of forming a United Presbyterian Church in this town.

The meeting will be addressed by the Rev. Andrew Mitchell Ramsay, of Melbourne and the Rev. Andrew Ross, late of Pitcairn, Perthshire, Scotland.

All persons favourable to the Presbyterian form of Church Government and the exclusive support of the Christian ministry by the free will offerings of the people, are respectfully invited to attend.

After some devotional exercises the Rev. Mr. Ramsay delivered an address on the Spirituality and Independence of the Christian Church, of which the following were the closing remarks : -

"The integrity and independence of the church cannot be too dear to us. We ought to be tremblingly alive to it; and any step that would in the remotest degree infringe upon the sacred constitution of the church should be studiously avoided."

"The encroachment of the State and the inroads of Spiritual Despotism are alike to be jealously dreaded, and strenuously opposed. Now the best defence against the encroachments of the state, is the voluntary principle. If the church seeks no favour she comes under no obligation. If she declines all state pay, she comes under no state power. The State grants no unconditional favours, she can indeed make no unconditional grant, of either money or land. What she gives, she gives in trust and the trusts she supports she must see administered. The acceptance of state support therefore of necessity, to a greater or less extent involves the curtailment of the church's freedom. There are certain things which state paid churches must do, and certain things which they must not, simply at the bidding of the state, be they right or wrong."

"Let the several churches in these lands build their own places of worship and support their own ordinances and they will not be troubled with state interference. Self-sustaining, independent and free, they may be persecuted by human governments as in the first centuries of the christian era, but all ground of state interference and control being swept away their sufferings will no longer be self-inflicted wrongs, but manifest trials of faith and patience from their Sovereign Head and Lord."

"As the voluntary principle is the most effectual security against state encroachment, so is it no mean security against spiritual despotism. Self associated, and self maintained by the immediate and direct contributions of their own component membership, the churches will be proof against the despotic measures of any ecclesiastics, that might be disposed to lord over them. Let the churches but tenaciously possess, and freely exercise the rights which Christ has conferred upon them, and they are perfectly safe. Let the christian people never relinquish their heavenborn right of choosing their own pastors or rulers: let them never forego the privilege or honor of maintaining their own ordinances: let them never suffer themselves to be denuded of the right of managing their own property, and regulating their own financial concerns; - let the churches I say, see well to these things and the demon of spiritual despotism will not be able to find a place for the sole of his foot."

"These are times my friends, when the churches should examine the great charter of their liberties, and every citizen of Zion inform himself of his burgess rights. Planting churches in a new country, we should be exceedingly careful that they be built on the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets - Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone. They are to exert a powerful influence on society and to mould the character of future ages and we should see that their legitimate influence be ever of the most pure and wholesome kind. And while the good seed of gospel truth, and moral equity is being sown, we must not forget that the enemy of God and man, is watching his opportunity of sowing the field thick with the tares of ignorance, superstition, and priestcraft."

"Having my friends lifted in this our adopted country, the banner of religious freedom, we must rally round it, and defend it to the last. Insidious attempts I need hardly inform you have at times been made to plant a dominant church in these lands, in violation alike of the spirit of our Colonial constitution, and of the great charter of the New Testament Church. Some of these attempts it is true, have been met with merited exposure, and the reprobation inflicted upon them by a discerning and indignant public, might well deter any similar attempt in future. But we know, or at least ought to know the restless and insatient spirit which gives birth to such measures, and our safety lies in distrust. We cannot my friends be too much on the alert. Other attempts will doubtless be made; while things continues in their present plastic state. The spirit of antichrist; whether it appears in puseyism or popery, in episcopacy or presbytery, or in any other form, is essentially despotic. It can bear no rival, and brook no superior. It must stand supreme and alone. Let as be aware of supineness. It is our danger. Our commercial prosperity is apt to make us careless. Amidst the bustle and stir of mercantile affairs, we are apt to overlook tho fundamental principles of good government both in church aud state, and thus afford facilities for insidious designs upon our liberties, by ignorant, misguided, or ambitious men. But let us forestall all such attempts, by the widest diffusion of enlightened and liberal sentiments throughout the community, and the establishment of churches on the primitive model. This is the best policy. There is nothing like resistanoe 'in limine;' it is then, at once the most easy, and the most effectual. Our motives are not so apt to be impugned. Our resistance appears in suoh circumstances to proceed more from principle than from passion, as it is not with the evil in practice, but the evil in prospect against which we are found to contend."

"In conclusion, dear friends, permit me to express the hope that this undertaking will be prosecuted in wisdom and charity, that there will be no doing or undoing; but that every step that is taken shall be a step in advance; and may God in his infinite goodness crown your exertions in his cause with abundant success."

The Rev. Mr. Ross next addressed the meeting as follows: -

"My dear friends, - I came to this country seeking health and usefulness - under the blessing of God the former has been to a great extent restored, and I am permitted to indulge the hope that at no distant period, I shall be in the possession of as much physical and mental vigour, as ever I at any time was favoured to enjoy."

"Improved by the long sea voyage from Scotland to this colony greatly, more than I had any reason to anticipate, 1 felt it to be my imperative duty to endeavour to be recognised as early as possible, a minister in connection with "The United Presbyterian Synod of Victoria," in order to my being engaged in ministerial work in fellowship with a society whose principles have been my own ever since I could form a judgment on religious matters. I therefore laid an application on the table of that Reverend Court, accompanied with testimonials of character, and of my former standing as a minister; and was, without any unnecessary delay, received and acknowledged as a ministerial member."

"In the exercise of my own unquestionable right as a minister or the Gospel without a charge, I have come to Geelong under the impression that it presented a field of labour in which I may be profitably occupied. And from what I have seen of the place, and from what I have learned of the proportion which the church-going population bears to the great mass of the people; I am convinced that there is room not only for one, but for many additional labourers."

"I am no sectarian - I am prepared to hail as a christian brother, - every man who loves the Lord Jesus in sincerity, although he may in many things non-essential to salvation differ from myself. And it is long since, through the press, I declared, my yet unchallenged conviction, that there was really more diversity of opinion in the early christian church than obtains among the varied denominations of orthodox christians in our own day."

"In the former love presided, the members of the religious community bore each others burdens, and thus fulfilled the law of Christ, maintaining "the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace." In the latter, love has burned with a feeble and flickering flame, Where no fault existed, they have been conceived to exist, and where they actually did exist, they have been viewed with a telescope and proclaimed abroad with trumpet tongue in the market place of the world."

"But is there no serious ground for dispute among those whom in the judgment of charity, we must believe to be the Lord's people? We try to answer in a word - admitting that they are one in doctrine, and that all individual believers are striving in a greater or lesser degree to follow out the precepts of Christ, to imitate the master in all his inimitable perfections there has been a lamentable want of christian charity whilst it may not be easily denied that there is serious ground for dispute; and this ground has been afforded by the church at first unwillingly surrendering her birth-right - her freedom and her honor unto the hands of worldly minded men."

"Thus the Lord's host, has been broken up into numerous divisions, exhibiting in their antagonistic bearing to each other the unseemly aspect of hostile armies, rather than companies of sinners saved by common grace, having one faith, one lord, one baptism. Alas; how frequently has it happened that the jealousies and animosities of christians have, even about comparatively trifling things burned with a more intolerable fierceness than was ever displayed by the most carnally minded men who would exclude God from his own universe, and design to treat the living and life-giving word as a cunningly devised fable."

"It is admitted by all, that during the first three centuries of the christian era, the church was distinguished by love, by purity of doctrine, that by enlightened and active obedience she counted all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus our Lord. The withering smiles of earthly power had not yet blotted out nor marred the brilliant writing on the banner of the cross "without me ye can do nothing." The church advanced to conquest relying on the strength of her Lord, and relying on his strength alone - and how glorious her triumphs in the exercise of her simple and unperverted faith, the power of earth, the wealth of earth, the wisdom of earth were all awake, up, and living with the instruments of determined hate in their hands. As for this sect it is every where spoken against. It had however been a mere passing blast of unwholesome wind if ignorant malignity had confined itself within the bounds of evil speaking; But persecution was wakened from his bloody dreams, to engage in bloody war. 'Superstition cried out, 'why are our altars forsaken? How comes it that priest and people have abandoned the ancient shrines and groves to bow down in lowly reverence to 'the unknown God;' and Satan grinding and gnashing his teeth was heard muttering "He has come to torment us before the time.'"

"The early church, poor and persecuted, having no friend but Jesus, 'grew mightily and prevailed.' The accursed league of earth and hell - the subtle and forceful effects of the powers of darkness instead of arresting her onward march only quickened and strengthened her heaven-inspired energies, and trampling on her writhing adversaries the burden of her song was 'the Lord of Hosts is with us, the God of Jacob is our refuge; selah.' And ere yet the story of the wondrous God-man of Nazareth had faded from the recollection of his learned and haughty contemporaries, his illiterate and humble disciples, had made 'the great salvation' to be known and appreciated, not merely in 'the rebellious city,' but in all - even In the most distant provinces of universal Rome."

"It is with a singular, with an inexpressible pleasure that the sincere and unprejudiced Christian contemplates those early centuries of the church's unity, independence, and progress. But so soon as persecution betook himself to his den - so soon as his sword was sheathed, his fires extinguished and his prison doors opened - so soon as the valley of tears and death put on the semblance of a fair and voluptuous garden brightened by the laughing and tempting apples of Sodom - so soon as the Bride of Heaven flung herself into the embrace of the man of earth 'Ichabod' was written on the portals of the temple of God 'the glory is departed.'"

"We allow that the first members of the Christian church were not perfect, and that in respect to them as a body there was reason for the application of the apostle's words 'they are not all Israel who are of Israel'.' We allow that the elements of Anti-Christ existed to the apostolic age, but its monstrous development was reserved for the age of a church establishment."

"The well meaning but weak-minded Constantine when he would have conferred the choicest blessing, laid the heaviest curse on the Church of the living God, under which she is actually paralysed and groaning till the present hour. If there be difficulty in discovering the seed of corruption sown in the days of the apostles, there is no difficulty in discovering the growth and varied manifestations of the Up-- tree from the day of this famous monarch to the middle of this famous nineteenth century."

"The church having forgotten the plain declaration of her Lord to Pilate 'My kingdom is not of this world,' and having with blinded eyes entered cheerfully into alliance with the dynasties of earth, having in a word sold her birth-right for 'a mess of pottage,' was subsequently dragged a fettered slave at the chariot wheels of godless princess and rulers who neither knew nor cared either for herself or for her Lord."

"We do not need to follow the church through the long dark history of her degradation, which dates from her first committal of adultery with the kings of the earth. We come down to a time subsequent, on the much needed Reformation - to a time when we find the rights of the Christian people of Scotland trampled upon by crowned prince and belted knight, claiming and exercising a power to fill vacant ministerial charges with their own creatures, however worthless in character, and however obnoxious to the congregations they were to teach, and over which they were appointed to preside in holy things. This power of godless men over the church, as might have been expected, wrought most perniciously, and contributed more than anything else to a fearful perversion of the gospel of the Son of God. The most damnable doctrines were openly preached from the pulpits of the Church of Scotland, and those faithful ministers who lifted up their voices against the crying abominations in the house of the Lord, met, in trying to stem the bitter waters, the vilest contumely from their clerical brethren."

"About an hundred and twenty years ago Revs. Ebenezer Erskine, of Stirling, Fisher of Kinclaven, Moncrief of Abernethy, and Wilson of Perth, withdrew under protest from the Established Church of Scotland, which they regarded at the time as being irreclaimable, and formed themselves into an independent presbytery. Within thirty years after there was another secession from the national establishment. The Relief Branch of 'the United Church,' worthily headed by the well known Gillespie, owed its existence to the violent settlements of ministers in the parishes of the state-paid clergy. It was primarily with a view to give Presbyterianism relief from this crushing bondage that she opened her places of worship, and welcomed all the friends of Jesus and of freedom to her communion. A few years ago the earlier and later seceders were happily united under the designation of 'the United Presbyterian Church.' The doctrine and discipline of the different Presbyterian Churches in Scotland are substantially the same, although we have no hesitation in saying, that of all the churches of Christ, 'the United Church' occupies the foremost position as the influential, fearless, and uncompromising advocate of civil and religious liberty."

"The church to which I have the honor to belong, is a church alike in theory and in practice, independent of the State; she depends entirely for the support of her ordinances, and the extension of her benefits, upon the free will offerings of the Christian people, and owns no king but Jesus, and no law but his. She has advanced even beyond the liberality of the mother church, and has so framed her ecclesiastical constitution that those who are indeed the disciples of the Lord may have ready access to her fellowship, however diversified may be their opinion on minor and secondary matters. Whilst she points to the Bible - the word of God, as the only infallible rule of faith and manners, she admits the necessity of an explicit statement of the sense in which she holds the truth - from the fact of religionists of the most hostile opinions asserting that they derive their creed from the same source: - the holy scriptures; she has therefore given forth such a statement, embodying what she believes to be absolutely needful to be reeceived in order to an individual being a member of the church of God. She considers it a palpable absurdity that all men will be of one mind on the non-essentials of Christianity - that to the effectuating of this the mind of man would require to be radically changed, and consequently she make these matters of forbearance. The grand doctrine of this church is the doctrine of the Reformation - justification by faith alone - whilst her discipline is Presbyterian. It is with a view to aid in the formation of a congregation in connexion with this church that I appear amongst you, not seeking my own aggrandizement, but the more prominent recognition and advancement of that liberty where-with Christ makes his people free.'"

"I am glad to learn that the Gospel is ably and faithfully preached in the Presbyterian Churches of Geelong, but as I have already stated, I have been led to the conclusion that there is ample room for another Presbyterian Church, and in addition to this, it is my confirmed belief that it is of the very greatest importance in relation to the future well-being of the inhabitants of this new country, that the Church should fill her own proper place of complete exemption from thraldom greater or less, induced by either direct or indirect government gifts. My earnest prayer is, that the Presbyterian churches in this city may soon be led to fill their true and most honorable station as altogether separated from and having nothing to do with the governments of this world, farther than as forming part of the general community of citizens looking for, and reasonably seeking the ordinary protection of law in the discharge of duties not inimical to the interests of the commonwealth."

"After what I have already said, it may yet be asked more particularly, what is in amount the difference between the Established Church of Scotland and the Free Church and the Synod of which you are a member? We answer that the Established Church of Scotland holds practically the establishment principle, and that the Free Church holds it in the abstract. They both hold that it is the duty of the government, as such, to endow and support the church. This principle, I and those who associate with me, repudiate as unreasonable and unjust. I affirm, 1st - that the principle of a civil establishment of religion is unreasonable, and that legitimately carried out it would equally warrant the establishment of Paganism or Christianity. Admitting this principle what appears right to the rulers is that which should be, and is established. Now the rulers themselves may be the most stupid or the most worthless of men, and if the essence of religion is found in the motives which prompt to action, these motives are out of sight and entirely beyond their control."

"2ndly. - The principle of a civil establishment of religion is unjust, because if the members of the civil community fulfil equally the obligations of good citizenship, it is iniquitous that one class of men should be preferred to honor and to wealth - merely on account of their giving a professed adhesion to a certain form of truth or falsehood, which finds favour with the Government of the time. But it is answered, the religion of the New Testament only ought to be established. Supposing this were granted, we would ask in return, who Is to judge what is the religion of the New Testament? Is this to be done by the Pope and his cardinals, by a bench of English bishops, a synod of Scotch Presbyterians, or a Unitarian brotherhood? The reply is, - O, no! the heads of the nation determine what ought to be the national religion. Indeed! and who gave them an infallibility to make selection of the party most under the influence of truth? Was the King of England, during the reformation from Popery, endowed with such supernatural gifts, that he could in the first place make the wisest choice, whatever the consequence of his after nursing might be. Was that notorious monster in the shape of a man, Henry the VIII, constituted by heaven the head of the church and God's viceregent, and the whole line of successive regal profligates been enlightened and appointed to discern, to establish, and to watch over the progress of pure and undefiled religion."

"It is obvious to me, and I think it ought to be obvious to all from the bygone heavy experience of human nature, that the Stale has its own department, and the church her's; and that these are as widely removed from each other as can well be conceived - that for the one to intrude into the other's department is to create or augment implacable discord, and to make previous confusion a 'confusion doubly confounded.'"

"I would be the last man to say without very sufficient reason, a harsh word of the Established Church of Scotland. I myself was born in her lap, and my parents and all my relatives have received her spiritual nourishment at her breasts. I give her frankly the honor to which she is entitled, she deserves to be known as the poorest and purest establishment of religion that ever the world saw. I have already animadverted on her defections. The secession did her immense good - gave her in some measure the purity and activity which she so much required; and her pulpits and her schools were mainly instrumental in forming the moral and mental character of Scotchmen, in marking them out as THE MEN the most distinguished for talent and enterprise of all the sons of Adam. Incalculable was the good this Church of Scotland did, and unspeakably more good she would have done, but her naturally vigorous constitution was enfeebled by the terrible weight of Acts of Parliament which in their preamble did not read 'Thus saith tha Lord,' but Thus saith the King.'"

"The Free Church of Scotland from her recent actings and experience one might think would be ready to read us a homily on the evils of government endowments of religion; but she has so very lately come out of the dimness of Egypt, that her eyes are unfitted to look steadily on the sun of religious liberty which is shining overhead. As yet she only sees 'men as trees walking,' and unaccustomed previously to any self-denying effort, her every soldier who has neither been persecuted nor called upon to pour out his blood in defence of cherished principles, is heard saying 'come see my zeal for the Lord.' Whilst we deeply lament this vain conceit, which we know must soon be dissipated, we rejoice that those who formed the Evangelical party in the Church of Scotland have taken a decided step in the right direction; and it may perhaps be ungracious now to remind that party that the measures which they so cunningly planned to exterminate dissent, were the very measures which in the mysterious providence of God made themselves dissenters."

"Why should the Free Church be arrogant, and give occasion to the remark that "she thinks more highly of herself than she ought to think." Let her remember where she stands; her position at present is that which was occupied by the Fathers of the United Presbyterian Church who left the Establishment, retaining the Establishment principle and appealing to the first reformed General Assembly." - From the "Victorian Colonist."