THE KING AS PRESBYTERIAN
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.]
Sia,—In your issue of May 3rd, Mr. Dudley Ss-mon says The King is the legal head of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland." Janus, in his note on Mr. Symon's letter, very properly queries this statement. It is utterly untrue. As its standards plainly and repeatedly declare, the King and Head of the Church is the Lord Jesus Christ. From Him alone is derived its authority, and it acknowledges no other head, legal or otherwise. The Monarch indeed sends a Commissioner to the General Assembly, and thus shows interest in the Church, but that representative of royalty does not preside in the Assembly, does not convene it or dissolve it, and does not even have a seat in the Supreme Courts. If our Sovereign attends the services of the Church of Scotland when residing north of the Tweed, it is not, as Mr. Symon asserts, either from "civil and legal obligation" or from "courtesy," but because he deems it right to do so, and shows that in worship as in other matters he desires to be one with his people.
As Janus mentions, Queen Victoria, without any incon- sistency, was a member of the Church of Scotland as well as ot the Church of England. I have seen the entry of her name on the roll of communicants of Crathie parish with a note of her attendance at Holy Communion. Other cases of membership of both National Churches are also known to me. I have even known of an Anglican rector who, possessing an estate in Scotland, became an elder in his parish church, and in that capacity represented his Presbytery in the General Assembly.—Yours, &c.,
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