must be ministers) make a quorum. The stated periods of meeting are, the first day after the dissolution of the Assembly, the second Wednesday of August, the third Wednesday of November, and the first Wednesday of March; and though meetings may be held at other times, yet no decision on a private process can take place except at these sessions. The commission appoint their own moderator. Their proceedings are submitted to the review of the ensuing Assembly. The inferior judicatories are responsible to the Assembly, and not to the commission, for obedience to the sentences of the commission.1

SECT. 2.-Synods.

4

There are sixteen provincial synods in Scotland, consisting of aggregate meetings of the members of the respective presbyteries of which they are composed.2 The General Assembly exercises the right of dividing the country into synods, and it lately constituted a new synod, viz. that of Shetland." Their time and place of meeting are fixed by the same authority, they usually meet twice a-year. Neighbouring synods are in the practice of sending to each other a minister and an elder as corresponding members, who vote in the synods to which they are sent. The synod choose a moderator, who must be a minister. Committees may be appointed. Each presbytery must produce its records to the synod, to be examined by a committee consisting of those who are not members of the presbytery. The synod is the immediate court of appeal from the presbytery, from which no case can be sent to the General Assembly without passing through it, unless by special authority from the Assembly, or in the circumstance of no meeting of synod intervening between the decision of the presbytery and the meeting of Assembly.7

SECT. 3.-Presbyteries.

There are at present eighty-two presbyteries. The General Assembly has the right of altering, and of increasing or diminishing, the number of presbyteries. A presbytery consists of the ministers of the parishes, and parliamentary churches within the bounds, of the professors of divinity (if

1 Hill's Practice, 92.-2 Pardovan's Collection, i. 14. 1. Hill's Practice, 75.-3 Ass. 1830, act 8.-4 Pardovan, i. 14. 1. Hill's Practice, 75.- Pardovan, i. 14. 1.-6 Ibid. i. 14. 4. Hill's Practice, 76.-7 Styles of Writs,

246.

E

they be ministers) of any universities within the bounds, and of one ruling elder chosen from the several elders of each kirk-session. It is usual to elect each minister in rotation moderator, for six months. The duty of each presbytery is "to judge in the references for advice, the complaints and appeals that come from the kirk-sessions within the bounds; to examine schoolmasters on their appointments; to provide for the annual examination of the parochial and other schools of the district; and to make an annual report on this subject to the General Assembly. It belongs to presbyteries to grant licenses to preach the gospel, and to judge of the qualifications of those who apply for them."2 (See Chap. II.)

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They have the duty of receiving and considering complaints against ministers or probationers, which cannot be instituted in the inferior court of the kirk-session.3 Proceedings against a minister must be founded on a specific complaint given in by some person or persons of good report, males of full age, heritors or inhabitants of the parish, and in communion with the church," who will undertake to resolve it into a libel, or on such a "fama clamosa, or general scandal," that the presbytery find it necessary to commence the process "for their own vindication." Previous inquiry may settle either the innocence of the accused or the necessity of a prosecution; but no proceedings involving penalties can be pursued, until the accused is served with a libel, specific as to the circumstances of the charge, and the time and place. The minister must be cited ten free days before the day of trial; if he fail to appear, a new citation is given him in his church, in presence of his congregation, and if he then fail to appear, he is held as confessed. Sentence of deposition is not in use to be pronounced by a presbytery in absence of the

accused.5

Presbyterial Visitations.-It was the practice for presbyteries to hold presbyterial visitations of parishes, on notice from the parish pulpit ten free days before the visitation, On such occasions, the minister, heritors, elders, and heads of families, convened in church, and were subject to questions regarding the conduct of each other.6

Presbyteries may meet as often as they appoint; but it is necessary, before a meeting is closed, to adjourn to a day

4

Hill's Practice, 41. Styles of Writs, 52. Ass. 1833, act 6, and 1834, act 9.2 Hill's Practice, 47.-3 Ibid. 50.- Pardovan, iv. 4, 9. Hill's Practice, 52. Styles of Writs, 97, et seq.-5 Hill's Practice, 57.Pardovan, i. 13.

named, otherwise the presbytery ceases to exist, till restored by the General Assembly.1

SECT. 4.--Kirk-Sessions.

The kirk-session consists of the minister or ministers of the charge, and of lay elders, whose numbers are regulated by the exigencies of the parish, but of whom there must always be at least two. The session elect a new elder when a vacancy occurs, or when they consider that the number should be increased. A person qualified to become an elder must have attained the age of twenty-one, and must either be an inhabitant of the parish, residing within it six weeks annually, or an heritor, or apparent heir to an heritor.2 At a period of ten days before the ordination of an elder, his "edict must be served" by his name being publicly proclaimed in church. The ordination takes place before the congregation, on the person elected having given satisfactory answers to questions relating to his opinions in religion and discipline. The minister of the parish is the moderator of the kirk-session, and when there are two ministers, they are both members, and preside in rotation. A minister and his ordained assistant cannot both sit as members of the session.4

3

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The duties of the kirk-session are said to be to superintend and promote the religious concerns of the parish, in regard to both discipline and worship;-to appoint special days for the worship of God, when it considers such days to be for the spiritual advantage of the parish;-to settle the time for dispensing the ordinances of religion;-to judge of the qualification of those who desire to partake of them ;-to grant certificates of character when persons are about to remove from the parish; to take cognizance of such as are guilty of scandalous offences;-and to cause them to undergo the discipline of the church."5 Kirk-sessions exercised powers in the administration of the Poor Law, which, by the late Poor Law Amendment Act, of which a digest will be found farther on, have been considerably modified.

3

SECT. 5.-Parishes.

The territorial division of the country into parishes, is recognised for certain civil purposes, in relation to taxation and

Hill's Practice, 82.-2 Ibid. 1, et seq. Styles of Writs, 2, et seq. Hill's Practice, 1, et seq. Styles of Writs, 2, et seq.- Ibid.-5 Hill's Practice, 9.

otherwise, as well as for those which are purely ecclesiastical. Districts may be separated and erected into parishes purely in the latter capacity, and then they are called parishes quoad sacra. The principal application of the parochial division for civil purposes will have to be noticed under the subject of the Poor Law. By the act of 1844, for disjoining parishes, to be presently noticed, it is enacted, that provision may be made by the judgment of division or disjunction, for the old parochial bounds remaining for the purposes of the Poor Law,' and that no division or disjunction shall affect the management of the commutation roads.2

Union of Parishes.-The power of uniting two or more parishes into one rests with the Court of Session, acting as the Commission of Teinds,3 and they exercise the power on cause being shown, as in the case of Kirknewton, where "the reasons urged by the pursuers were the contiguity of the situation of the two parishes, and the smallness of the stipend of Kirknewton. It was also stated, that the churches of both parishes were in bad repair, and inconveniently situated; and that it would be much for the advantage of both parishes that a new central church should be built, capable of holding the inhabitants of both, for which the heritors of Kirknewton were willing to advance £300."4

Disjunction and Division.-Parishes may be divided, or portions of parishes disjoined and formed into new parishes by the Court of Session as Commission of Teinds. By the old act, such a proceeding required the consent of the heritors of three-fourths of the valued rent in the parish;5 but by the act of 1844, the consent of the heritors of a major part of the valuation is made sufficient. The largeness of the population of a parish is a sufficient reason for disjunction without reference to superficial measurement.7 There are provisions for requiring the heritors, in the course of the process, judicially to state assent or dissent. A district may be disjoined as a parish without reference to the consent of the heritors, if it be shown that there is within it a sufficient place of worship, and if the Titulars of Teinds, or others who have to pay no less than three-fourths of the additional stipend do not object. Without reference to a disjunction of a parish, any district in which there is an endowed church on the scale fixed by the act may be erected into a parish quoad sacra, with minister and elders, and a kirk-session, for all

9

17 & 8 Vict. c. 44, § 6.-2 Ibid. § 7.-3 1707, c. 9.- Connel on Parishes, 162.5 1707, c. 9.-6 7 & 8 Vict. c. 44, § 1.7 Ibid. § 2.- Ibid. § 3• Ibid. § 4.

purely ecclesiastical purposes. Endowed Gaelic congregations in the large towns of the Lowlands may be erected into parishes, without having districts assigned to them, and though their congregations be dispersed through the rest of the community.2 Districts in which churches are endowed under the Highland Churches' Acts may be disjoined as parishes quoad sacra, on the application of the presbytery, or of one or more heritors holding a fourth of the valuation.3

CHAPTER II.

PRESENTATION AND COLLATION OF MINISTERS.

SECT. 1.-Patronage.

THE right of patronage may exist in the hands of individuals as an accessory of land, or as a separate estate. In the latter case it is in its nature a personal right, but it is capable of being feudalized, and if it has been so, it can only be transferred by infeftment, in the same manner as any other heritable estate. Individuals who hold patronage, do so in the capacity of representatives of the original founders. Where no individual could produce a title, the right devolved to the pope before the Reformation, and after that event to the crown. During the Roman Catholic ascendency many patronages belonged to ecclesiastical establishments, and others were appropriated to them, so as to be extinguished, the establishment providing a stipendiary to perform the duties of the cure. At the Reformation both these descriptions of right devolved on the crown, and, along with rights of patronage, formerly in the hands of archbishops, bishops, and chapters, they are now in the hands of the sovereign, or of those who hold them by hereditary grant from the crown.7 A reducible title to patronage may be protected by prescription, to accomplish which it would appear to be sufficient that two presentations have been made, and that a period of

6

17 & 8 Vict. c. 44, § 8.- Ibid. §§ 12, 13.- Ibid. § 14.4 E. i. 5, 15, D. P. L. 205.-5 D. P. L. 188. Con. P. L. 452.--6 D. P. L. 189. Con. P. L. 453.- 1587, c. 29. 10 Anne, c. 12, § 4. D. P. L. 207. Con. P. L. 456.