In preparation for the new position in which the Church would be placed when deprived of state support, Dr. Chalmers had made arrangements some months pre- vious to the Assembly of 1843 for establishing associa- tions throughout the country with the view of collecting funds for the support of the ministry. With such en- ergy and activity had these preparations been carried forward that before the day of the Disruption came 687 separate associations had been formed in all parts of the country. So extensive and ardent was the sympathy felt with the movement, not in Scotland only, but through- out the kingdom, and even throughout the world, that funds were liberally contributed from all quarters in support of the cause, and at the close of the first year of the history of the Free Church her income amounted to the munificent sum of £366,719 14s. 3d. Nor has the source of her supply afforded the slightest symptoms of being exhausted even after the lapse of thirty-five years. On the contrary, she raised £10,250,000 in her first thirty years, and has now an annual income of over £500,000. The Siistentation Fund for the support of the ministry reached in 1877 the gratifying sum of £172,641 13s. 3c/., yielding an annual salary to nearly 800 ministers of about £150 each. The Building Fund for the erection of churches and manses amounted in 1877 to £41.179 2s. OJrf. This year (1878) a Church Extension scheme of £100,000 has been entered upon with spirit. The Congregational Fund, composed of ordinary collections at the church -doors on Sabbaths, and a great part of which goes to supplement the min- isters' stipends, is £94,481 19s. 6c/. The Fund for Mis- sions and Education is £55,896 lis. There are various other objects connected with the Free Church which it is unnecessary to detail, but the sum total of the contri- butions for the last year was £565,195 10s. 4c7., an amount which plainly indicates that its friends and supporters are still animated with an intense and undiminished at- tachment to the principles on which this peculiar sec- tion of the Christian Church is based. Upwards of 800 churches have been reared by the liberality of her peo- ple, who are calculated to amount to somewhere about 1,000,000. To the large majority of the churches, manses, or parsonage-houses, have also been added. The Free Church lias established a divinity school in Edinburgh, called the New College, which was completed at a cost approaching £40,000, is provided with a more complete staff of professors than any similar institution in Scot- land, and with more effectual means of training an edu- cated ministry than is to be found elsewhere in Great Britain. The Free Church has also built a divinity hall in Aberdeen, and a third in Glasgow. The number of theological students in attendance on these colleges amounts in 1878 to 230.
In connection with the Free Church, a fund was in- stituted in 1848 for Aged and Infirm Ministers, which already exceeds £39,000. In addition to the home min- istry, which in 1878 numbered 1059, there are nearly 300 settled ministers belonging to this Church in the differ- ent departments of the colonial field.
The Widmos1 and Orphani Funds are chiefly made up of yearly contributions (compulsory) from each min- ister of £5 to the Widows' and £2 to the Orphans' fund. At present the fund gives an annuity of £42 to each widow and £15 to each child under eighteen. Larger sums are given to the children when their mother is dead. The accumulated fund of the two schemes is up- wards of £224,000. There is a society for sons and daughters of the clergy, not under the General Assem- bly, designed to aid ministers in the education of their families. In 1876 it paid £1758 in 125 grants, from £10 to £18 each.
The Home Mission and Church Extension, Scheme. — Its purpose is to keep stations supplied by preachers or catechists in thinly peopled districts; also to foster mis- sions in mining and manufacturing localities, and other populous places, and form them into regular charges; to aid such charges until they are taken on the equal
PRESBYTERIAN CHURCHES 524 PRESBYTERIAN CHURCHES
dividend platform; to maintain lay evangelists, and .semi oul ministerial evangelists from time to time; and to encourage the employmenl of students and others as missionaries in necessitous districts in large towns. To encourage ministers of experience to undertake mission congregations in populous places, grants of £200 a year are given for a limited time; the grant diminishing gradually from year to year, till ii is extinguished, la oilier eases the grants are -smaller. The income of the fund, derived from a church-door collection thrice in two years, donations, legacies, etc., is between £9000 and £10,000 a year. This year a Special Church Ex- tension Fund, amounting to £10(1,00(1, is being raised, and the greater part of it has been contributed in a few months.
Highland Mission, — This is a somewhat similar scheme, managed by a separate committee of the Gen- eral Assembly, for districts of the country where ' Saelic is spoken. It has a collection every second year. Its average revenue is about £3000.
Church mid Manse Building Fund. This is intended to help congregations in their building operations. At lir-t it was very large. Dr. Guthrie having raised for a General .'Manse Fund alone aboul £100,000, but of late years its income lias been only about £1500. A special Building Fund is contemplated for new charges.