UNITED PRESBYTERIAN CEL1TRCH.—The career of this church as a corporate body has been one of uninterrupted prosperity, and scarcely more is necessary than to indicate its present attitude and condition. In point of doctrine, it adheres (like all the other Pres byterian churches of Scotland) to the Westminster confession of faith and the larger and shorter catechisms, " it being always understood that we do not approve of any thing in these documents which teaches, or may be supposed to teach, compulsory, or persecuting and intolerant principles in religion"—a qualification supposed to refer more particularly to the 23d chapter of the confession of faith. Its form of church government is Presbyterian; but, unlike the Established and Free churches, it has no intermediate courts between presbyteries and the supreme court, the latter of which it does not call a general assembly, but only a synod; thomrh, in point of fact, it partakes more of the nature of a "general " assembly than the bodies known by that name, since it is really an assembly of the whole clergy of the denomination, with one elder from each kirk-session. It has a theological hall and library in Edinburgh, and a staff of professors. The United Presbyterian church is also at present, not only in practice, but
also in theory, a voluntary church. The voluntary principle , it is true, is not formally laid down in any portion of her standards, or "basis of union;" but a long experience of practical voluntaryism has finally led, one may almost say, the whole body of United Presbyterians to the conviction that the interests of Christianity are best served by the total separation of the church from the state. Although inferior in point of wealth to the Established and Free churches, the United Presbyterian church has honorably dis tinguished itself by its general liberality and occasional munificence.
In the year 1875 about 100 congregations of the United Presbyterian church situated in Fmgland were transferred by the mother church in Scotland to the " Presbyterian church in England" (q.v.). Since the separation of its English branch the "United Presbyterian church still counts about 530 congregations and over 172,000 members. Protracted negotiations for union between the United Presbyterian and Free churches have been without result.