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    Untitled Article

    and I find that Scotland is thus supplied with places of worship , and clergymen of the Established Presbyterian faith : Cong . Mid . Parish Churches for ( in round

    numbers ) 900 970 Chapels of Ease ( Ministers chosen and paid by Congre- > gation ) for 55 55 Chapels in the Highlands depending on the Royal Bounty 38 38 Chapels depending on the Society for propagating Christian Knowledge . . . 7 7

    1000 1070 Scotland thus exhibits , by a close enumeration , one thousand places of worship , and one thousand and

    seventy ordained and regularly-officiating clergymen , for a population , after dededucting about 340 , 000 for Dissenters , of 1 , 7 ^ 0 , 000 persons , * at a cost , if the estimate I have made above is

    correct , ( and I believe it is rather above the truth , ) of little more than 250 * 000 / . a-year . I now turn to the Dissenters , who , I will confess , are rather my favourites , although I have not the honour of belonging to their body . The

    United Associate Synod of the Secession Church ( as the greatest body of the Dissenters have chosen to designate themselves ) require of their candidates for the office of clergyman precisely the same course of education as is required by the Established Church ; namel y , a four or five years '

    attendance and study of the ancient languages , mathematics , belles-lettres , and moral and natural philosophy , at some of the Scotch colleges , and an attendance afterwards , during five years , on their own Professor of Theology , by whom the same doctrines are taught as those in the theological chairs of the Established Church .

    The United Synod , in reference to the members who adhere to its communion , corresponds to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland . Its jurisdiction ? is exercised in the

    * A vast proportion of this latter number ( exclusive even of very young children , and superannuated and bed-ridden persons ) will not , and , in a great measure , from want of church accommodation , cannot receive religious instruction publicly at all .

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    same manner as that of the Assembl y over the Presbyteries and kirk-sessions under its inspection . The doctrine , ' the discipline , and form of worship , are precisely the same in this

    Synod as in the Established Church . And the chief reasons which they had in the year 1732 , and which they still have , for their separation from the Established Church , are set forth in

    a short summary of principles Which they published in the year 1820 , to be " The sufferance of error on the part of the Established Church * with > out adequate censure : The settling of ministers by patronage ^ in reclaiming congregations : The neglect or

    relaxation of discipline : The restraint of ministerial freedom in testifying against maladministration ; and the refusal of the prevailing party to be reclaimed / 5 To persons at all acquainted with the history of this sect , it is very clear

    that they could very soon be amalgamated with the Established Churchy were it not for the despotic law of patronage , which , as it has hitherto most unfortunately been administered , has tended to alienate a considerable

    proportion of the population of Scotland from the Established Church , and prevented the voice of the people from being heard in the appointment of the established instructors , whom they are , notwithstanding , obliged by

    the law to pay . Wherever the rigat of presentation , which is possessed by an oligarchy contemptible in point of numbers , has been exercised with discrimination , and with a due regard to the feelings of the people , it has been found that dissent either dwindles into

    insignificance , or drags on a sickly and precarious existence . The magistrates of our large towns , for reasons to which I have already adverted , now take special care in the appointments to the vacant livings in their

    gift ; and the consequence is , that dissent is there making no progress , nay , is rather on the decline . To the honour of many patrons , and particularly those of the female class , a similar care is beginning evidently to

    be taken in appointments to country parishes ; and even patrons whose regard for religion is held even by themselves at a very low estimate , are cautiously looking out , in spite of political engagements and partisanship 8 ^ for young men to fill their churched

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    ^ 342 Established and Dissenting Churches in Scotland .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1825, page 342, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2537/page/22/