BY REV. ALEXANDER MACKAY, OBAN.
OUR readers will have observed in the last Magazine an appeal from our Edinburgh congregation for help to defray the cost of the church they have lately purchased. Many of our present readers were not born when the Free Presbyterian Church made its stand for the truth, and some who sympathise with and support us for the sake of the stand we then made know but little of the difficulties with which some of our congregations have had to contend. We therefore consider this a fitting time to give a brief account of the history of our Edinburgh congregation.
Owing to the passing of the Declaratory Act by the Free Church in 1892, which gave licence to ministers and others to teach and maintain Higher Critical views of the inspired Scriptures, not a few people left the Edinburgh Free Church congregations. They saw clearly that the constitution of the Free Church of Scotland, in the nature of things, could no longer be held by men who remained in the Declaratory Act Church, whatever name they might retain. Those who thus separated began at once to hold services of their own in a hall in George IV. Bridge. These meetings were at first conducted by a student, who spoke the English language only. When the now Rev. Professor J. R. Mackay, of the Free Church, visited this little band of witnesses, and explained to them the Free Presbyterian position as distinct from that of the then Free Church, they at once identified themselves with our Church. On the motion of a gentleman—not a Gaelic speaker—the Edinburgh congregation of the Free Presbyterian Church decided to become an English-Gaelic charge. The student already referred to, who spoke English only, objected to this naturally sane decision. In such a centre as Edinburgh, however, where there are so many Gaelic-speaking people, it was but reasonable that Gaelic as well as English services should be held. Notwithstanding this, the student hived off with about a dozen, and thus began the struggles of our Edinburgh congregation at its very inception; but this opposition was merely a flash in the pan.
On the 19th March, 1903, the Rev. Alexander Stewart, Oban, was inducted as pastor of the congregation. Shortly after his settlement a church was purchased. But in the year 1905 Rev. Alexander Stewart joined the present Free Church of Scotland, and took the Free Presbyterian property along with him. About half of his congregation followed him. Those who remained steadfast had to do the best they could to find a place in which to worship, although they and Free Presbyterian friends had contributed handsomely and heartily to the purchase of the church now become Free Church property, partly through defective title deeds. It may be said here and now that such a state of matters will be impossible in the case of our lately purchased Edinburgh church, since the title deeds for it retain the property (with provision to sell) to the Southern Presbytery of the Free Presbyterian Church, even should our Edinburgh congregation cease to exist—a contingency we have no cause to anticipate.
After the split in the congregation in 1905 our people met in halls in Chambers Street, and it can be testified that if ever a congregation had cause to believe that God acknowledged their faithfulness to His Word they certainly did, in the wonderful manner in which He there blessed them. Unfortunately for them the halls in Chambers Street were sold some years after to a commercial company, and from then till now our people have been more or less driven from pillar to post, as far as a suitable place of worship was concerned. They have at last secured a suitable, not to say excellent, building in their new church in Gilmore Place.
It will now be abundantly plain to our readers that the Edinburgh Free Presbyterian congregation has had to struggle all along against trials and disadvantages; and, although they have obtained the church, the writer need hardly add that the price of all such property has advanced enormously. Consequently they, being only a small congregation, require the material help of all friends of the cause of Christ. Their appeal, therefore, is not only human, but scriptural. Subscriptions and donations are to be sent to the writer, as their Moderator pro tempore, who will gratefully acknowledge the same in the Magazine.
Their position is as follows:—The price of the church was £3000—there is no feu duty. At the date of purchase they had only £500 in their Building Fund, but three friends in the congregation loaned £1500 at deposit receipt interest, and the Trustees, who sold them the church, very generously gave it to them for £2000 cash down at date of taking over the property. The remaining £1000 is to be paid, free of interest, within one year. So they require £1000 within a year, and we feel sure it will be forthcoming. The loan of £1500 will be afterwards repaid as God, in His bountiful providence, shall provide.
It may be said that Rev. Alexander Stewart has had occasion to join another congregation of the Free Church in Edinburgh. The Free Presbyterian Church building, which he took over to the Free Church, and for which not a penny of all that was contributed by Free Presbyterians was refunded, was sold to be used as a motor garage, without even being offered, at any price, to the Free Presbyterians.
ANTIQUITY without truth is a cipher without a figure.—Verulamius.