d agreed
by a majority of more than ten to one to appoint a committee to confer
with a view to Union with any committee which might be appointed by
the Free Church General Assembly. The Free Church Assembly, which met
a fortnight later, passed a similar resolution unanimously, although
not without a keen discussion revealing elements of opposition which
were afterwards to gather strength.

It is quite possible that, as competent observers have suggested,
if the enthusiasm for the project which then existed had been taken
advantage of at once, Union might have been carried with a rush.
But the able men who were guiding the proceedings thought it safer
to advance more slowly; and, when the Joint Union Committee met,
they went on to consider in detail the various points on which the
two Churches differed. These had reference almost entirely to the
relations between Church and State. The United Presbyterians were,
almost to a man, "Voluntaries," _i.e._ they held that the Church ought
in all cases to support itself without assistance from the State, and
free from the interference which, in their view, was the inevitable
and justifiable accompaniment of all State establishments. The Free
Churchmen, on the other hand, while maintaining as their cardinal
principle that the Church must be free from all State interference,
and while therefore protesting against the existing Establishment,
held that the Church, if its freedom were adequately guaranteed,
might lawfully accept establishment and endowment from the State. An
elaborate statement was drawn up exhibiting first the points on which
the two Churches were agreed with regard to this question, and then
the points on which they differed. From this it appeared that they
were at one as to the duty of the State--or, in the language of the
Westminster Confession, the "Civil Magistrate"--to make Christian laws
and to administer them in a Christian spirit. The Civil Magistrate
ought, it was agreed, to be a Christian, not merely as a man but as a
magistrate. The only vital point of difference was with regard to the
question of Church establishments--as to whether it was part of the
Christian Civil Magistrate's duty to establish and endow the Church.
But, as it seemed to be a vain hope that the Free Church would ever
get an Establishment to its mind, it was urged that this was a mere
matter of theory, and might be safely left as an "open question" in a
United Church. The statement ref