founded on contract.[12] But, whether recognized or not, the church for her part continued to believe that she had an inherent spiritual jurisdiction, and remained unmoved in her determination to act in accordance with that resolution "notwithstanding of whatsoever trouble or persecution may arise."[13] In 1863 a motion was made and unanimously carried in the Free Church Assembly for the appointment of a committee to confer with a corresponding committee of the United Presbyterian Synod, and with the representatives of such other disestablished churches as might be willing to meet and deliberate with a view to an incorporating union. Formal negotiations between the representatives of these two churches were begun shortly afterwards, which resulted in a report laid before the following Assembly. From this document it appeared that the committees of the two churches were not at one on the question as to the relation of the civil magistrate to the church. While on the part of the Free Church it was maintained that he "may lawfully acknowledge, as being in accordance with the Word of God, the creed and jurisdiction of the church," and that "it is his duty, when necessary and expedient, to employ the national resources in aid of the church, provided always that in doing so, while reserving to himself full control over the temporalities which are his own gift, he abstain from all authoritative interference in the internal government of the church," it was declared by the committee of the United Presbyterian Church that, "inasmuch as the civil magistrate has no authority in spiritual things, and as the employment of force in such matters is opposed to the spirit and precepts of Christianity, it is not within his province to legislate as to what is true in religion, to prescribe a creed or form of worship to his subjects, or to endow the church from national resources." In other words, while the Free Church maintained that in certain circumstances it was lawful and even incumbent on the magistrate to endow the church and on the church to accept his endowment, the United Presbyterians maintained that in no case was this lawful either for the one party or for the other. Thus in a very short time it had been made perfectly evident that a union between the two bodies, if accomplished at all, could only be brought about on the understanding that the question as to the lawfulness of state endowments should be an open one. The Free Church Assembly, by increasing majorities, manifested a readiness for union, even although unanimity had not been attained on that theoretical point. But there was a minority which did not sympathize in this readiness, and after ten years of fruitless effort it was in 1873 found to be expedient that the idea of union with the United Presbyterians should for the time be abandoned. Other negotiations, however, which had been entered upon with the Reformed Presbyterian Church at a somewhat