(Known since 1900 as the UNITED FREE CHURCH) An ecclesiastical
organization in Scotland which includes (1908) more than 500,000
of the 1,200,000 inhabitants of that country professing
adherence to Presbyterian principles. The existence of the Free
Church as a separate ecclesiastical body dates from 1843, when a
large number of members, both lay and clerical, of the
Established Church of Scotland, severed their connection with
that body as a protest against the encroachment of the civil
power on the independence of the Church, especially in the
matters of presentation to vacant benefices. According to the
Free-Church view, the Church of Scotland, from the date of its
inception in 1560, upon the overthrow of the old religion had
possessed the inherent right of exercising her spiritual
jurisdiction through her elected assembly, absolutely free of
any interference by the civil power. Such an independence had
been asserted by her first leaders, Knox and Melville, and
especially laid down and claimed in both the fi