"Rainy wi'oot the Principal". XXII.

The Free and United Presbyterian Churches were headed for union. All that remained to be seen was if the union would be clean or messy. But 1897 gave Rainy and the United Presbyterians a pleasant interlue. It was fifty years since the union of the Relief Church and the United Secession Church had created the United Presbyterian Church, and as a matter of course the United Presbyterians were celebrating. In view of the coming union they invited Free Churchmen to the celebrations as a matter of course. Rainy was a delegate, of course, and he was invited to speak on The Relation and Duty of the Presbyterian Free Churches to Each Other. He dealt directly with the union (a move some unkindly suggested was uncharacteristically straightforward for him). He spoke glowingly of the ties that bound the Free and United Presbyterian Churches together spiritually, noting that they were both branches of "the characteristic Christianity of Scotland." Speaking of the fathers of both Churches he said:

"They had their errors. They were guilty of extravagances that cost them dear. But I think one may reflect with tears almost in one's eyes upon that wonderful battle of the Scottish Church. I know of nothing like it - the courage of it, the wonderful trust in principle. The way in which generation after generation of men spent their bodies and their goods was wonderful. We of the free Presbyterian Churches put in our claim to have a share in this inheritance of heroism, courage and self-sacrifice which belonged to Scottish Presbyterianism. Let us make good that claim."
It was the duty of the Churches that were so closely related, he said, "not to keep apart from each other." He supported union, not for ignoble ends of merely partisan churchmanship, but because he felt it would be for the good of the Church as a whole in Scotland. As the celebration of the Free Church Jubilee in 1893 had been the cause of the inauguration of the union scheme, the United Presbyterian Jubilee in 1897 moved on the motion towards union. Each Church had existed separate for fifty years. For the next fifty years they were to be joined as one - or that was the plan.
The Free Church Assembly met a month later. In it Rainy moved that the Free Church take the next step towards union. The moderate Constitutionalists added an amendment to give members of the united Church liberty to strive for the claim of "the last clause of the protest of 1843" - a restoration of the benefits of establishment. An anti-unionist amendment recieved only 27 votes. It was down on 42, but still enough to worry Rainy. There was still the legal question. If a party of the Free Church decided not to enter the union they would almost ceertainly lay claim to the title of the Free Church of Scotland, and the only way for them to do that would be to claim the property of the Free Church in court. Leading legal minds in the Union party told Rainy not to worry - the Model Trust Deed under which all Free Church property was held would not support such a claim. Others cautioned that the Model Trust Deed was still an unknown quantity. Rainy decided to go forward anyway.
The Assebly of 1899 agreed to the plan of union (although with some dissent) and sent it down to the Presbyteries to be ratified. A majority of Presbyteries agreed to the plan, and in the Assembly of 1900 the vote was 586 for union and only 29 against. The Uniting Act was passed, and arrangements were made for a Union Assembly on 31st October 1900. The world held its breath. The action of a few ministers in October would decide the fate of the Constitutional party, and the name of the Free Church of Scotland.

And we, God willing, shall be holding our breath in expectancy until next time.