The Scotch Courts have, of course, decided that they have
no option except to carry out the decision of the Lords, and the Free Church shows no disposition either to resign any advantage derived from that decision, or to grant a period of delay until Parliament can be consulted. The Advisory Committee o the United Free Church, which is, we believe, composed of lawyers, resolved, therefore, on Wednesday that this Church must "denude themselves of," or, as we say, surrender, the Church offices, the Assembly Hall, the Colleges in Glasgow and Aberdeen, the Normal Colleges, and "a certain proportion of the Foreign Mission property." The question of the eleven hundred manses and churches is still unsettled, as they belong to their congregations or to special trustees, and not to the general trustees of the United Free Church. The Moderator, however, in a reply to an address from the Congregational Union, expresses little hope of pre- serving any ecclesiastical buildings unless Parliament inter- venes. It is, indeed, more and more evident every week that this is the sole remaining hope of the dispossessed Church.
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