KIRK AND NATION
SIR.--In his review of my short history of the Re- formed Church of Scotland, Kirk and Nation, Dr. Gordon Donaldson has accused me of 'gross errors.' This almost papal denunciation may have misled some of your readers. May I point out what these 'errors,' as detailed by Dr. Donaldson, seem to amount to? They are: I. That my book differed in its emphasis from one of the others dealt with in his article. Fathers of the Kirk. to which Dr. Donaldson himself contributed art interesting and certainly quite un-Presbyterian chapter.
2, That I used the word 'erastianism' in its usual dictionary sense and the word 'democracy' in a sense which in fact I was careful to point out as unsuitable.
3. That I said that the Church of Scotland re- cognises no Head .but Christ. This is an indisputable fact and a crucial one in the Kirk's history.
4. (Apparently.) That I did not sufficiently emphasise the difference between churches which claim to be Catholic and independent, such as the Churches of Rome and Scotland, and those which are controlled to some extent by the representatives of the lay community--for example, Ivan the Terrible, Hitler or the MPs who rejected the Anglican Revised Prayer Book. In fact this contrast is repeatedly referred to in my book, as it must be in any intelligible account of Scottish church history.
May I add that no one has done more than Dr. Donaldson himself to develop, with real learning and ingenuity, the anti-Presbyterian legend my re- ference to which seems to have annoyed him!— Yours faithfully,
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