LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
CHURCH UNION AND CHURCH ESTABLISHMENT IN SCOTLAND.
ITO TEE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."'
am sorry that I must deny, "in the most formal way," the statement of Lord Balfour, that "the Church of Scotland has offered in the most formal way, in a letter to the other Presbyterian Churches in 1875, to share the privileges of establishment and endowment with them."
The Church of Scotland has no power to make such an offer. The Legislature, which, so long as that Church is established, is, by our law, absolute master alike of her faith and polity, can alone do E0 ; and this, of course, is one of the difficulties of the present situation. In 1875, the Assembly merely renewed the expression of its desire to take all possible steps, consistent
with an Establishment, "to promote the reunion of Churches having a common origin," and, on approaching the other Churches here with this somewhat tepid statement (a very much weaker one than these other Churches had already repeatedly adopted), it, in some unexplained way, backed out of its previously expressed desire to consider the "suggestions as to obstacles" which they promptly made. This was the more disappointing, as, before that time, there had been representations by men so well entitled to speak for it as the Duke of Argyll, that the Church was now able to take the ground of that Claim of Right of 1842 which it had subsequently abandoned. But all that is now ancient history. Were the Church of Scotland to make even now the formal offer which it has no power to make, it is quite understood in Scotland that it would only be to raise the whole question of the future conditions of Establishment in this country and in Ireland,—the very last thing that Scotland desires to plunge into. The Earl of Aberdeen's suggestion, which ignores the whole matter of Establishment, is at least a message of peace.
—I am, Sir, &c., A FREE CRURClibitai.
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