"Rainy wi'oot the Principal". XXIV.

The 31st of October 1900 saw the union of the majority of the Free Church of Scotland and the whole of the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland, forming the United Free Church of Scotland, a huge national dissenting Presbyterian communion. As the Union Assembly began the assembled throng sang the 133rd Psalm:

Behold, how good a thing it is,

And how becoming well,

Together such as brethren are

In unity to dwell.

The oldest members of the two uniting Churches then moved and seconded the Uniting Act, and agreed on by the whole Assembly. Dr. Ross Taylor, the retiring Free Church moderator, said solemnly:
"In the presence of our Divine King and Head of the Church, and with the concurrance of me brother Moderator, I declare the Act of Union finally adopted - that the Free Church of Scotland and the United Presbyterian Church are now one in Christ Jesus, under the designation of the United Free Church of Scotland."
The assembly and the spectators joined together in the 72nd Psalm.
After a formal greeting between the two Moderators, the Uniting Act was signed, and a huge cheer went up. This done, the first Moderator of the United Free Church of Scotland was called to the chair. Only one man had ever been thought of for the role, one who "had so wisely fought and so earnestly laboured and so devoutly prayed the bring about the result we to-day witness," as Dr. Ross Taylor put it.
As Principal Rainy stepped from the room in which he had been waiting, another great cheer went up from the assembled multitude. No other man could have taken the chair, and no other man would have walked so steadily among the cheers of his brethren. Rainy's snow-white head, lifted up above the Assembly, had a patriarchal appearance. The cheering did not go to his head, but he was pleased with what he saw. The union that he had seen thwarted in 1873 had finally been brought to fruition after over a quarter of a century.
He spoke in measured tones, expressing first his thanks to the Assembly for electing him, then going on to speak of the importance of the events of that Day in the ecclesiastical history of Scotland. Two branches of the divided Scottish Church had united; he expressed his hope that there would some day arise in Scotland a still greater Church, 'United, national and free,' as his biographer put it.

The day after the Uniting Assembly was the Jubilee of the fine buildings of the New College, now the principal seminary of the United Free Church of Scotland. To commemorate the occasion a new hall had been added to the New College complex. It had been named the Rainy Hall, in honour of the longest serving principal of New College. The event, although intended to honour the College, naturally became an occasion to honour Rainy. Rainy seemed the hero of the hour. But his life was not to remain untroubled for long. There was a ghost at the banquet - the ghost of the Free Church of Scotland. In 'exile', as it were, the few men who had stayed out of the Union were planning their own future. The United Church had taken their name, their meeting-houses, everything they had. Or it had tried to. There remained still an appeal to Caesar - to the law courts.

The effects of this we shall, God willing, discuss next time.