The Presbytery which is the court next in dignity, is composed of the ministers of a certain district, with an elder from each parish. The number of pres byteries is seventy-eight. Their chief duty consists in the management of such matters as concern the church within their respective bounds. But they may originate any matter, and bring it under the view of the Synod or General Assembly. They have also the superintendence of education within their bounds, such as the induction of teachers, and the examina tion of schools.
The Synod is the next intermediate court. There are fifteen Synods, each consisting of the clergymen of a certain number of presbyteries, with elders, as in presbyter ies. Presbyteries meet generally once a month; synods twice a-year, though some remote sy nods, such as that of Argyle, only once.
The General Assembly is the last and supreme court, and meets yearly in the month of May in Edinburgh, and continues its sitting for twelve days. The king presides by his representative, who is always a noble man, and is denominated the Lord High Commissioner. The General Assembly is a representative court, con sisting of 200 members, representing presbyteries, and 156 elders representing burghs or presbyteries, and five ministers or elders representing universities, altogether 361 members. They choose a moderator or president, out of their own number, dis tinct from the Royal Commissioner, the duty of the latter consisting merely in convening and dissolving the court, and in forming the medium of communica tion between it and the throne. The moderator is now always a clergyman, though previously to 1688, laymen sometimes held that office.
there are no less than three such chapels, the popula tion being upwards of 40,000. The total number of such chapels is fifty-four. So early as the year 1709, a society was formed for promoting Religion and Edu cation in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. From the funds of this society, and from L.2,000 an nually given by the king, missionaries, teachers, and catechists, are employed in these places. This has a most beneficial tendency, and will tend more than any other thing to the civilization and refinement of that part of the kingdom. By the bounty of govern ment additional churches are about to be erected in large and populous parishes.
Dissenters in Scotland amount to about a fourth of the whole population. There are about 30,000 per
sons, representatives, as it were, of the Covenanters, in the reign of Charles II. who would not accept of the settlement of presbytery as fixed at the Revolution, and who are commonly termed Cameronians from the name of their famous leader. Almost all the dissent ers are more rigid presbyterians than the members of the established church, and are all strict Calvinists. The following table gives a general view of the man ner in which the inhabitants of Scotland may be ar ranged according to their religious opinions.
The revenue of the clergy arises from tithes called teinds, and from glebe lands, the minimum extent of which is four acres of arable land, with as much pas ture ground as will feed a horse and two cows. The greater part of the land of Scotland having been va lued at a very remote period, the maximum of teinds for which they are liable was thus fixed and can never be augmented. The clergyman is not entitled to all the teinds of the parish; at least not without the sanc tion of the Court of Session, which under the name of Court of Teinds, takes cognisance of such matters; but there is a power of appeal from its decisions to the House of Lords.
In some parishes the free teinds are so limited, that they do not in some instances amount to L. 100, and in others not nearly that sum. This being much too small an income for the comfortable maintenance of a family, government, in 1810, enacted, that the mini mum of stipend (in addition to the manse and glebe) should be L. 150, and that the sum necessary to make up this income should be paid out of the treasury. Out of 890 parishes, this augmentation takes place in the case of 172; and the sum required for this purpose is L.10,000 annually. There is very little inequality in the income of the Scottish clergy; few have an in come of above L.550, while the average has been com puted at L.285, including manse and glebe. In Greenock and North Leith, where the glebe has been feued, the income is much larger, the former of these yielding L.800, the latter L.1300. In large towns, also, the stipends are enlarged to meet the exigencies of the situation; and thus the ministers of Edinburgh enjoy a revenue of nearly L.700, varying a little ac cording to the sources (an annual tax on house rent and duties connected with the port of Leith) from which it is collected.