text:  A Presbyterian church has always been regarded as in some degree leaning to a republican character but a republic may be either aristocratic or democratic: now Lord Aberdeen has favoured the democratic tendency of the age by making the probationary examination of the candidate as much of a popular examination and as open to the impression of objections arising with the body of the people as could be done with any decent regard either to the rights yet recognised in the patron or still more to the professional dignity of the clerical order