UNITED FREE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND, a religious organization, representing the union made in 1900 between the Free Church of Scotland (except a dissentient section who sep arated off and retained the name of Free Church) and the United Presbyterian Church. (See FREE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND and UNITED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.) The first moderator was Dr. Robert Rainy (q.v.). The Free Church brought into the union 1,077 congregations, the United Presbyterians 599 ; the revenue of the former amounted to £706,546, of the latter to The United Church has three divinity halls, at Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen, served by seventeen professors and five lecturers.
The minority of the Free Church who had refused to join the union lost no time in testing the legality of the act of the majority in entering it. Their summons, dated the 14th of December 190o, claimed that in uniting with the United Presbyterian Church, which did not hold the principles of the Free Church, the majority had forfeited the right to the property of the Free Church, which must be judged to belong to the minority who remained faithful to the principles of the Free Church and were that Church. In the Scottish courts the case was decided in favour of the union on the 9th of August 190i, and on the 4th of July 1902 ; but, on appeal, the House of Lords, on the 1st of August 1904, by a majority of five to two, reversed these decisions, and found the minority entitled to the funds and property of the Free Church. Few legal decisions have occasioned so great consternation or such serious practical difficulties. At first sight it deprived the majority of the Free Church section of the United Church of all its material goods—churches, manses, colleges and missions, even of the provision for the old age of the clergy, and handed them over to a body which could have little prospect of making effec tive use of them. Nothing remained but to invoke the intervention of parliament to put an end to an impossible situation. In Decem ber a commission was appointed, consisting of Lord Elgin, Lord Kinnear and Sir Ralph Anstruther, to inquire into matters con nected with the two churches, while the question of interim pos session was referred to Sir John Cheyne, as commissioner, for inquiry and action. The commission sat in public, and after
hearing evidence on both sides, issued their report in April 1905. They reported that the state of feeling on one side and on the other had made their work difficult. They had concluded however that the Free Church was unable in many respects to carry out the purposes of the trusts, which, under the verdict of the House of Lords, was a condition of their holding the property, and that there was a case for parliamentary interference. They recom mended that an executive commission should be set up by act of parliament, in which the whole property of the Free Church, as at the date of the union, should be vested, and which should allocate it• to the United Free Church, where the Free Church was unable to carry out the trust purposes. The Churches (Scot land) Act, which gave effect to these recommendations, was passed on the 11th of August 1905. The allocation of churches and manses was a slow business, and involved litigation; but at length was carried through. (See FREE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND.) The United Free Church, after rearrangement of the Synods and Presbyteries, has 12 Synods and 63 Presbyteries, and 2 Con tinental Presbyteries. The Supreme Court is the General Assem bly, which meets the third week of May every year at the same time as that of the Established Church and of the remanent Free Church of Scotland. In the year ending Dec. 31, 1926, there were 1,449 congregations and 46 preaching stations. The total mem bership was 536,409, and there were 2,034 Sunday Schools, with 187,545 scholars and 24,784 teachers. In 15 Foreign Mission Fields there are 43o European Mission Agents and 5,773 native pastors, evangelists, and teachers, including in both cases those of the Women's Foreign Mission. The amount raised on the field in 1925 was £303,361. The income of the Church at the close of financial year 1926 amounted to (See also SCOTLAND, CHURCH OF.)