In 1834 the General Assembly passed the celebrated "Veto Act," giving to the Church courts the power of re- jecting a presentee if judged by them unfit. This act was set aside by the civil court, and subsequently, on appeal, by the House of Lords, in the Auchterarder case, in 1839. The Assembly yielded so far as the tem- poralities were, concerned, but at the same time une- quivocally maintained the principle of non-intrusion as one that could not be given up consistently with the doctrine of the headship and sovereignty of Christ. The Strathbogie case next occurred, bringing the civil and ecclesiastical courts into direct collision, which ended at last in the Disruption of 1843, under the lead of Chalmers, Cunningham, Welsh, Candlish, ami Dun- lop; 470 members signed an "Act of Separation and Deed of Demission," and the Free Church of ' Scotland was organized. Soon after the separation of 1843 an act of Parliament was passed, called " Lord Aberdeen's Act," to define the rights of congregations and presby- teries in the calling and settlement of ministers. But in 1874 this was suspended by another act, whereby patronage was abolished, and the right of electing min- isters was vested in the people. Government still re- serves, however, the appointment of theological pro- fessors. The Free Church carried off about one half the communicants of the Established Church, and became a rival communion in most of the parishes of Scotland. The three denominations — the Established Presbyterian Church, the United Presbyterian Church, and the Free Church (in which the Reformed Presbyterian Church merged in 1876) — constitute the chief Presbyterian churches of Scotland at the present time. See Scot- lank, Presbyterian Churches of.
The government, discipline, and worship of the Es- tablished Church of Scotland are in all respects the same as those of other Presbyterian churches. Accord- ing to the constitution of the Church, there is a kirk- session in every parish, consisting of the minister and a body of lay elders. All the ministers within a certain district, with one lay elder from each session, constitute the Presbytery of that district. The next higher court is the Provincial Synod, which embraces several neigh- boring presbyteries. The highest court of all is the General Assembly. It is a representative court, con- sisting of 247 members and 178 elders, the greater part, chosen by the presbyteries, but a considerable number of elders chosen by the town-councils and universities. It meets early in May, is presided over by its modera- tor, and has the presence of a lord high commissioner, appointed by the crown, who, however, is not a member, and has no authoritative voice in the court. A " Com- mission of Assembly" meets in August, November, and March, consisting of the members of Assembly, and a minister named by the moderator, to attend to matters remitted to it by the Assembly, or that may arise in the intervals. In consequence of the connection with the
state, there are certain peculiarities connected with the support of the ministers which it may be proper to notice. Dr. Jamieson, in his interesting sketch of the "Church of Scotland" contributed to the Cyclopedia of Religious Denominations, thus describes these peculiarities: "The provision made for parish ministers by the law of Scot- land consists of a stipend arising from a tax on land. It is raised on the principle of commuting tithes or teinds into a modified charge — the fifth of the land prod- uce, according to a method introduced in the reign of Charles I, ratified by William III, and unalterably es-1' tablished by the treaty of union. To make this intelli- gible, we may observe that at the Reformation the teinds were appropriated by the crown, with the burden of providing for the minister. In after- times they were often bestowed as gifts on private individuals to- tally unconnected with the parish, and who thus came so far in place of the crown. These persons received the name of titulars, from being entitled to collect from the heritors the unappropriated teinds; but they were also bound on demand to sell to any heritor the titular- ship to his own teinds at nine years' purchase. From the collective land-produce of a parish the court of teinds determines how much is to be allotted for the support of the minister. This general decree having fixed the amount, a common agent, appointed by the court, proceeds to divide it proportionally among the landholders, and this division, when fully made, is sanc- tioned by the court. It is called a decreet of modifica- tion, and forms the authority or rule according to which alone the minister collects his stipend. According to this system, which has proved a very happy settlement of a quwstio vexata, the burden falls not on the farmer or tenant, as in other countries where tithing exactions are made, but on the landholder or titular of the teinds, to whom a privilege of relief is opened by having them fixed. He may value them, that is, to use the words of principal Hill, 'lead a proof of their present value before the Court of Session, and the valuation, once made by authority of that court, ascertains the quan- tity of victual or the sum of money in the name of teind payable out of his lands in all time coming.' The advantage of this system is that it enables proprietors to know exactly the extent of the public burdens on their estate; and the teind appropriated to the mainte- nance of the minister, or to educational and other pious uses, being sacred and inviolable, is always taken into account, and deducted in the purchase or sale of lands. But. that would not be so advantageous to the minister by fixing his income at one invariable standard were it not that provision is made for an augmentation of sti- pend every twenty years in parishes where there are free teinds. This is done by the minister instituting a process before the judges of the Court of Session, who act as commissioners for the plantation of kirks and valuation of teinds; and in this process the act of 1808 requires that he shall summon not only the heritors of the parish, but also the moderator and clerk of presby- tery as parties. In the event of the minister being able to prove a great advance in the social and agricult- ural state of the parish, the judges grant his applica- tion, allocating some additional chalders; but where the arguments pleaded appear to them unsatisfactory, . they give a small addition, or refuse altogether. In many parishes, however, from the teinds being ex- hausted, ministers had no prospect of augmentation in the ordinary way; but redress was afforded through the liberality of Mr. Percival's government in 1810, who used his influence in procuring an act of Parlia- ment to be passed according to which all stipends in the Establishment should, out of the exchequer, be made up to £150. This, though but a poor and inade- quate provision for men of a liberal profession, was felt and gratefully received at the time as a great boon. But such is the mutability of human society that these stipends, which in 1810 formed the minimum, are now greatly superior to many which at the same period