sence of an Established Church. As a matter of fact, they have
done so since Dr. Cairns's death, though not without secessions,
collective and individual. But experience had shown that it was the
existence of an Established Church, towards which the Anti-Union
party had turned longing eyes, which was the determining factor in
the wrecking of the Union negotiations. Besides, Dr. Cairns looked
forward to a wider Union than one merely between the Free and United
Presbyterian Churches, and he was convinced that only on the basis of
Disestablishment could such a Union take place. To the argument that,
if the Church of Scotland were to be disestablished, its members would
be so embittered against those who had brought this about that they
would decline to unite with them, he was content to reply that that
might safely be left to the healing power of time. The petulant threat
of some, that in the event of Disestablishment they would abandon
Presbyterianism, he absolutely declined to notice.

The Disestablishment movement had been begun before Dr. Cairns left
Berwick, and he supported it with voice and pen till the close of his
life. He did so, it need not be said, without bitterness, endeavouring
to make it clear that his quarrel was with the adjective and not with
the substantive--with the "Established" and not with the "Church," and
under the strong conviction that he was engaged "in a great Christian
enterprise."

CHAPTER X

THE PRINCIPAL

During 1877 and 1878 the United Presbyterian Church was much occupied
with a discussion that had arisen in regard to its relation to the
"Subordinate Standards," i.e. to the Westminster _Confession of Faith_
and the _Larger and Shorter Catechisms_. These formed the official
creed of the Church, and assent to them was exacted from all its
ministers, probationers, and elders. A change of opinion, perhaps
not so much regarding the doctrines set forth in these documents as
regarding the perspective in which they were to be viewed, had been
manifesting itself with the changing times. It was felt that standards
of belief drawn up in view of the needs, reflecting the thought,
and couched in the language of the seventeenth century, were not an
adequate expression of the faith of the Church in the nineteenth
century. The points with regard to which this difficulty was more
acutely felt were chiefly in the region of the "Doctrines of
Grace"--the Divine Decrees, the Freedom of the Human