ideas and traditions which have prevailed for centuries on the other side of the Tweed. The Free Church of Scotland owes its existence to the revolt of the most distinguished members and the majority of the clergy and laity of the old Established Church, from the interference of the State in its affairs, and, above all, in the right of congregations to select their own ministers. Theoretically the men who, with Dr. Chalmers at their head, seceded from the Church of Scotland in 1843 were all in favour of a State Church, but it was to be a State Church in which the spiritual liberties of the people were to be duly respected; and it was because those liberties seemed to them to have been trampled upon that hundreds of ministers-the very flower of the Kirk of those days-retired from their livings and threw themselves upon the mercy of the world. Scotsmen of all parties are now agreed that these men took a noble and heroic step. They gave up their houses, their churches, their stipends, and appealed to their congregations to approve of what they had done. The congregations responded to their appeal in a way that was unique in the history of ecclesiastical disputes. The overwhelming majority stood by the seceding ministers. They opened their pockets with a freedom which is unjustly supposed to be rare among their race. In almost every parish in Scotland they raised churches and manses in place of those which had been given up by their spiritual leaders, and in an astonishingly short space of time provided a sustentation fund-in other words, an endowment-which put the new organisation, the Free Church as it was called, upon a footing that compared favourably with that of the old Establishment. Ever since then the Free Church has been by common admission the most powerful and prosperous religious communion in Scotland. It has established churches of its own in England and throughout the Colonies, and there can be no question of the fact that throughout the world it has furnished a rallying-point for all Scotsmen who cling to the Presbyterian faith and mode of worship. But in going out as they did from the comfort and security of the Establishment, the leaders of the Free Kirk made certain declarations of their principles. One of these was their adherence to the Westminster Confession of Faith, a doctrine which, during the past sixty years, has faded almost as much out of the spiritual life of the Scotch people as the Athanasian Creed has faded out of that of the English. The other, and for the purposes of this controversy the more important, was their affirmation of their belief in the principle of a State Church. Dr. Chalmers and his brethren declared that they did not leave the Establishment because they had ceased to believe in that principle. They left it because they could not accept the principle of State patronage, holding that the Church ought to be its own master in all things that affected

the spiritual welfare of the congregations. For nearly sixty years the Free Church grew and prospered, and enlarged its boundaries on every hand. For many years during that period there had been a strong movement in the Church in favour of its union with another religious body, the United Presbyterian Church. This body held practically the same doctrinal views as the Free Church and adhered to the same Presbyterian form of government and organisation. Upon only one point was there any definite difference between the two communions. The United Presbyterians did not believe in the theory of a State Church. They held that the State and the Church had not, and ought not to have, any corporate relations. But, as a matter of fact, this difference in theory was of infinitesimal importance in reality, seeing that for more than half a century the Free Church had been as completely severed from any connection with the State as the United Presbyterian Church had always been. After prolonged discussion, and with the all but unanimous assent of both parties, the two Churches in 1900 resolved to amalgamate. The General Assembly of the Free Church agreed to the amalgamation by a majority of 643 to 27. In the United Presbyterian Church there was absolute unanimity in its favour. Before taking the decisive step the highest legal authorities in Scotland were consulted, and I believe I am correct in saying that they were unanimous in pronouncing in favour of its legality. But the small minority of twenty-seven, most of whom were ministers of Gaelic congregations in the Highlands, went to law. The Scotch courts, whose members happen to know what meaning is attached by Scotsmen to the word Church, decided in favour of the legality of the amalgamation. The Highland ministers, with what seems to have been a curious recklessness as to legal expenses, went to the House of Lords, and by five votes to two the House of Lords has decided in favour of the small minority, and has declared that they, and they alone, are the true representatives of the Free Church established in 1843 by the Scotch people. No one doubts that the House of Lords acted from a sense of duty, and on the highest and driest legal technicalities; but from the point of abstract justice, and of the interests of a great people, it is equally beyond dispute that the decision was absurd and impossible. If the majority of the House of Lords had been familiar with the well-known story attributed (though, I believe, wrongly) to Dean Ramsay, they might have paused before pronouncing a judgment that can only be called disastrous. The old lady who having denounced her minister for heterodoxy was told that she seemed to think that nobody but herself and her crony, John, would be saved, and replied, 'I'm no so sure of John,' seems to typify the plaintiffs in this remarkable action. It is useless to waste words over it in its present stage. The very unsympathetic attitude of Mr. Balfour when asked if the legislature would intervene to prevent what is for Scotland a national

calamity, points, however, to further developments. Lord Rosebery on a famous occasion declared that after a certain General Election a single first-class compartment would be sufficient to carry all the Scotch Conservative members up to London. It seems not improbable that his prediction will be realised on the next appeal to the country, unless, indeed, Scotland has ceased to take the keen interest which it once felt in its ecclesiastical affairs and its religious liberties.

More interesting, and on the whole more vitally important, than any questions of domestic policy has, however, been the story of Russia during last month. The great war in the Far East has reached a stage in which it threatens, by no means remotely, the peace of the world. Happily it does not appear that any person of standing in Russia really wishes to enlarge the boundaries of a conflict with which the Czar and his people already find it difficult to deal successfully, and there is certainly no desire on the part of Great Britain or the other Powers affected by Russian doctrines and pretensions to plunge into the life-and-death struggle which is being carried on in Asia. We may hope therefore that the diplomacy of the world will be able to avert a grave calamity; but undoubtedly during last month that calamity seemed at one time to be very near. The question of contraband of war is one that has often troubled the relations of States. To a country situated as ours is there is no need to say that it is a question of supreme importance. As the great naval Power of the world it is, above everything else, our interest to see that the legitimate rights of combatants waging war upon the seas are not unduly interfered with. But, with our vast commercial fleet and our insular position, it is also our duty to prevent any unfair extension of the rights of combatants in dealing with contraband carried in neutral bottoms. The authorities at St. Petersburg do not seem in the first instance to have appreciated the necessities which bind us to a certain line of policy, and they have acted with a high-handed disregard for the rights and interests of neutrals which, if it were to be persisted in, would cause a very grave crisis. It is not necessary to tell here the stories of the stoppage of British mail steamers on the high seas, of the interference with our commerce even in waters so near our own as the North Atlantic, or of the seizure and, in one case at least, the destruction of vessels suspected of carrying contraband. The whole mercantile commerce of Great Britain would be exposed to grave injury if we were to acquiesce in the Russian doctrine that neutral ships are liable to be stopped and searched anywhere outside the limits of their own waters. Nor is it conceivable that this country can acquiesce in so flagrant a violation of the Treaty of Paris as that involved in the passage of the so-called volunteer fleet through the Dardanelles, and its immediate transformation into an armed force intent upon stopping mercantile

traffic even in the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. Least of all can a country like ours acknowledge that food not intended for the use of armies but for non-combatants is to be regarded as contraband of war. These are the chief points of difference which have arisen between ourselves and Russia during the past month, and it is not necessary to emphasise their gravity. Fortunately the swollen pretensions of the authorities at St. Petersburg have been abated in consequence of the representations of our own and other Governments, and there seems to be reason to hope that the dangers which arose so suddenly a few weeks ago are now passing away. The English Cabinet has acted firmly, though happily not in a hostile spirit, and one of the most serious crises in our foreign relations which we have known for years past seems now to be subsiding. Probably the feeling on the subject in this country would not have been so intense but for the action of Germany, which made haste to profit by the difficulties which Russia threw in the way of our ships trading with Japan and the Far East in order to increase her own service of vessels to that part of the world.

But Russia herself has had other and graver matters than these questions to deal with during the month. At the end of July her chief statesman, M. de Plehve, the real author of the reactionary policy of recent years, was struck down in the streets of St. Petersburg in circumstances which recall the assassination of Alexander the Second. It was a staggering blow for the Czar and his administration, and its full significance has yet to be revealed. The course of the war has been during the month uniformly unfavourable to Russian arms. The Japanese have, in two severe naval engagements, practically destroyed both the Vladivostock and the Port Arthur squadrons, and their armies, after a series of desperate battles in which the loss of life on both sides has been enormous, have closed in upon Port Arthur, the fall of which may be expected at any moment. Further north in Manchuria the movements of the contending armies are still hidden from us, though there is no reason to suppose that the Japanese commander has abandoned his determination to cut off the retreat of General Kuropatkin and his army, or that the position of the latter is in any respect more favourable than it was a month ago. Altogether the position of Russia in Manchuria is one that may without exaggeration be described as desperate. The one gleam of sunshine that has fallen on the unhappy country is in the birth of an heir to the throne-a great-grandson of Queen Victoria. All the peoples of Europe will join in the prayer that this innocent babe may be spared to play his part in a regenerated Russia.

France during the month has lost her great statesman WaldeckRousseau; the United States are entering into the tumult of a Presidential election, and it does not seem that the candidature of

the Democratic candidate, Mr. Parker, will be the insignificant demonstration which Mr. Roosevelt's friends at one time imagined it would be; the Australian Commonwealth has passed through a political crisis, which has resulted in the resignation of the recently formed Labour Ministry and in the formation of a Cabinet under Mr. Reid, the old leader of the Free Trade party. Our expedition to Tibet has succeeded in reaching the mysterious capital; but the Dalai Lama has fled from Lhasa, and Colonel Younghusband, in his attempt to bring the negotiations with the Tibetans to a close, is once more hampered by their incurable love of excuses and delays. The reappointment of Lord Curzon as Viceroy of India may be regarded as proof that the English Cabinet is in entire agreement with him on the subject of his policy in Tibet.

WEMYSS REID.