THE CONFLICT IN THE SCOTCH CHURCHES.
THE situation of the Scotch Free Churches is even more complicated. than was at first believed, or than the able correspondent of the Times, whose in- structive letter was published on Monday, has cared to state. The amount at stake, to begin with, will, we fear, be greater than was generally estimated, for a great majority of the churches and manses, and all the eolleges, maintained by the United Free Church will pass to the little body now declared to be the only true Free Church. That constitutes a great perplexity, for, while the United Free Church could easily have raised a million, it will be very difficult, perhaps impossible, unless some millionaire steps in as a deus ex machind, to raise three or four times that amount. The impossibility of the Free Church doing the work has also become more evident. Twenty-eight ministers, most of whom preach Li Gaelic, eannot supply some eleven hundred churches and a host of professorial chairs ; and though, of course, they hope to convert the whole world to their own rigid and somewhat obsolete theology, they themselves will not deny that the process must take years, and that in the interval they will be nearly in the position of one who has inherited a palace without the means even for repairs. The United Free Church, which counts in its congregations half the Presbyterian Scotchmen throughout the world, " has become," as the writer in the Times puts it, " a spiritual entity with no material frame at all." There has hardly been such a situation in Europe since the Revolutionists reduced the proud and wealthy Church of France to the position of a persecuted and secret sect.
So far the facts have been made plain ; but there are other facts, as yet unnoticed on this side of the Tweed, which greatly increase the complication. The chances of compromise have seriously diminished. The members both of the little Free Church and of the great United Free Church have been so embittered by the contest that it will take all the moderation of their chiefs—and recollect Some of these chiefs are Highlanders whose forte in eccle- Siastical conflicts is not moderation—to reduce passionate feeling within reasonable limits, and to restore that per- manent sanity which marks Scotsmen, and which, like the political instinct of Englishmen, has so often saved them from rushing over the precipice. It is very difficult ever to doubt that Scotsmen will be sensible, but they 93.11 get very angry when they think themselves oppressed ; and when a question of conscience is intermixed with the grudge created by oppression, they are apt to postpone their confidence in the Christian virtue of resignation. There is such a question of conscience now worrying the members of the Free Church. The difficulty that the immense fund awarded to them by the Law Lords is strictly a trust fund with which they have no right to deal could be easily got over, if they were willing to apply to Parliament, but they may not think it right to be willing. If it was morally wrong for them to suffer the United Free Church to enjoy the funds which that Church administers, because it has varied its formularies, it must be equally wrong, when Providence, in the shape- of Lord- Halsbury and his colleagues, has assigned those funds to the guardianship of the " true " Free Church, to restore to a Church which they think heretical any portion of the property saved. That, they may very possibly think, will be a compact with the Evil One made for the sake of an earthly repute for generosity or moderation. This idea has evidently occurred to them, for if it had not, it would be impossible for any one who read the first sketch of their demands to exonerate them from the charge of overweening presumption. They have, for example, it is said, demanded the transfer of the Indian Mission to themselves, with all its magnificent colleges, and its three hundred and four missionary professors. That Mission has existed for nearly fifty years, has .done perhaps of all educational corporations the best teaching work done in India, and now controls establishments which, when the number of students is considered, are greater than the two great Universities of Oxford and Cambridge taken together. To transfer the buildings and their endowments and the right of control to inexperienced men, at present so few that they positively could not perform the ordinary duties of the position, is practically to extinguish the Mission, and to throw back the general mission cause for at least twenty years. They have asked also, if the pub- lished sketch of their proposed terms is in any way accurate, for the Assembly Hall of the United Free Church, which they cannot by any possibility fill or utilise, and which, therefore, they must be asking for only in order that their victory may have a concrete manifestation. It would be terribly difficult to get over this argument from conscience if the victors press it as ecclesiastical arguments are usually pressed ; and there are among them men who, to judge by their sermons, would press the collection of tithe on anise and cummin as a duty they owe to God. Their bitterness is not unnatural, for the dominant majority pressed their rights over the minority to an injudicious length ; but it is hardly consistent with their special Christian profession. Christ sanctioned the payment to Caesar of that which was Caesar's—viz., tribute and civil obedience—but they have felled a. Christian Church with Caesar's sceptre.
Nevertheless, we are not without hope of a reasonable, if painful, settlement. The United Free Church must make up its mind to suffer, and, if that is possible, to be silent under the suffering. They are beaten, and they must pay. The true Free Church, as it thinks itself, has not yet banged-to the door of compromise ; their chiefs, if the Moderator of the Assembly truly represents them, are willing to surrender certain property for a term. If they can in conscience surrender a shilling to their adversaries, conscience ought not to stop them from sur- rendering a crown. They must, it seems clear, receive a great sum—we fear that half a million is the nearest to a practical suggestion—with which they may enrich their own Sustentation Fund and set up a great college in which to educate the ministers who are to diffuse their special opinions through the world. That would not be beyond the resources of the United Free Church: If the money could not be raised at once, it could be borrowed at 4 per cent. within twelve hours. But on receipt of a great specified sum, which must, of course, be the result of a special negotiation, the successful litigants ought to be merciful, and to join the United Free Church in a prayer to Parliament to make the arrangement valid. It would be difficult to dispense with an Act, hecause, if it is dispensed with, a minute minority even of the little Free Church may rebel as the Free Church itself has done, and snatch from their new General Assembly the material advantages of which the Highland pastors have now deprived the old one. With the future of that body they will have no concern. They will, no doubt, be greatly annoyed to see the United Free Church introduce into its constitution a clause giving to the men of the future a right to modify or expand their formularies, but that, in presence of the Law Lords' decision, is inevitable for them, and, indeed, for all Non- conformists. Nothing else can guard them, as Lord Halsbury told the world in his judgment, from the mercilessness of minorities. It is said that there is a difficulty in the way, because donors may not be willing to bequeath funds to Churches which insist on a, right to depart from the stereotyped expression of thoughts that the donors hold essential to salvation. The Churches, however, must face that danger as the nations do. The powers of Parliament do not frighten electors at all. The House of Commons may one day demand re-admission to the Roman peace, or express as an operative idea the con- viction that Karl Marx understood political economy. Nothing guards, or can guard, a whole community from an outburst of insanity in its representatives ; but the com- munity does not fear such an occurrence, and neither should the Churches. They must trust God a little, as the masses of free men do when they part for seven years with their own inherent authority over their own liberties and laws.
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