Money voluntarily collected at a meeting house of Seceders, does not fall under the administration of the kirk session within whose bounds it was gathered.
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The sum of L.51 Scots having been collected at a fast observed by the Seceders, the kirk session of St Ninians (in which parish the collection was made) brought an action before the Sheriff of Stirling against the persons who had the custody of the money, to pay it to them; alleging, That, as the minister who preached at the meeting is a minister of the established church, and in possession of a legal stipend in the next parish, and the elders who collected the same are elders of the parish itself where the meeting was held, these circumstances brought the collection under the general denomination of ecclesiastical goods, put under the direction of the eldership or presbytery, to be by them uncorruptedly distributed, in terms of the 116th act of Parliament, anno 1592. The Sheriff decerned the defenders to pay the money; which they suspended, on this ground, That the will of the donors, expressed or implied, in all voluntary contributions, ought to be the rule for the distribution of money so collected. When any thing is given in charity at the church, it is given ipso facto unto the kirk-box, and so falls under the administration of the kirk session; and when, with consent, and at the desire of the legal church officers within a parish, divine service is performed, the charity collected by them there falls under their administration, as well as that collected at the church; because it is presumed, that the donors know that the persons who receive their collections do it only by virtue of their being church officers; therefore, by giving their contributions to them, they declare their intention that it should enter the kirk-box, and consequently fall under the management of the kirk session. But the case is quite different, when people of a separate church from the one established by law, meet for the performance of divine service in a parish, and there make contributions for charitable uses; for here, if it is not so expressed, sure there is nothing that can imply it to be the will of the donors, that the money given by them should fall under the direction of the ecclesiastical officers of a church, of which the donors are not members; and, by the certificates produced, it is plain the contributors intended the suspenders should have the management thereof, who, it is a mistake to say, were members of the established church, as they had, before that meeting, by a writing under their hand, separated from the church of Scotland, and joined themselves to the Seceders.
