Immediate steps were taken for completing the organization of the Free church, and it as lunch as possible into every district of Scotland. The forethought of Dr. Chalmers had already devised the sustentation fund (q.v.). The Free church under took from the first the continued support of all the missions previously carried on by the church of Scotland; and all the missionaries hastened to declare their adherence to the Free church. An "education scheme" was soon afterwards undertaken; and col legea for the training of ministers were founded in Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Aberdeen. Considerable opposition was at first experienced on the part of landowners, who refused to grant sites for churches and other buildings; but this gradually gave way. The bitterness of feeling vhich at first existed between the Established church of Scotland and the Free church has long since very much passed away.
/In 1873, the number of ministerial charges in the Free church of Scotland was 005. There are also numerous " preaching stations," in which preaching is regularly main. tamed; and other ordinances are administered under the care of presbyteries. Some of these are continually being added to the list of ministerial charges. The whole sum raised for religious and educational purposes by the Free church of Scotland up to 3Iar., 1873, or iu about thirty years, was about £10,299,306, or rather more than £34°, 310 a year. In this are included the sums devoted to the erection of churches. manses, school-buildings, colleges, etc. The sustentation fund for the year ending 15th May, 1873, amounted to £136,77919s. 8d.; the missionary and educational funds to £77,350; 'congregational funds to £147,715 Os. ld.
• Since 1843, the history of the Free church has been generally that of peaceful prog ress. It has been agitated by questions respecting the administration of the sustenta
tion fund, colleges, etc., which are of little interest to those beyond its own pale. It was brought into a litigation in the court of session, seeming to affect its fundamental principles. The minister of the Free church at Cardross, in Dumbartonshire, having been suspended by the general assembly of 1858, had recourse to the court of session, on the allegedground of irregularity in the proceedings of the ecclesiastical judicatories, demanding the suspension of the sentence; and being on this account summarily eiep osed by the generzil assembly, he raised an action in the court of session, not only claiming damages, but to have the sentence rescinded and found null and void. The case terminated in a recognition of the independence of the church in things purely spiritual, and a full adnussion of its subjection to the civil courts in all things temporal, including the right of these courts to ,remand full information as to all ecclesiastical proceedihgs, and production of minutes and other documents. when they should see cause: Negotiations towards union with the United Presbyterian church gave rise to great dissension in the Free church itself, from the unwillingness of many of its mem bers to modify their profession of the doctrine of the litwfulness of the establishment of the church by the state; and it seemed as if a disruption of the Free church was impending; but in 1S73 the•proposat of immediate union was laid. aside, and peace in the Free church restored. A similar proposal with regard to the reformed Presbyterian church was more successful, and the union was consummated in 1876.