Strange Place for Roman Catholic Wedding.
A Roman Catholic wedding service took place in St. Duthus Memorial Church (Church of Scotland), Tain, Ross-shire, on 17th March, 1950—the first in living memory. An R.C. priest named O’Rourke, Dingwall, officiated. A special altar was prepared for the ceremony. By their names, the bride appeared to be Italian, and the bridegroom, Irish. The event was reported in the press. Apart from the past history of St. Duthus Church building, those in the Church of Scotland presently responsible for this Church and worship conducted therein, completely lost their bearings as to their duty towards the professed Presbyterian and Protestant Church of Scotland. But laxity, ignorance of Rome and false charity, go hand in hand to-day when the need for a genuine Protestant witness arises. The people of Tain should have something to say on this matter.
Church Money Raised Through Whist Drives.
On 4th April last, Rev. A. R. Taylor, Church of Scotland, told Aberdeen Presbytery of the dangerous trend in raising money for congregational purposes through whist drives and social functions. He said that this could not be called “Christian liberality” and had nothing whatsoever to do with the sacrifice that ought to be made by members of the Church for its maintenance. But has Mr. Taylor the mind and the backing in his Church to move for the condemnation of these worldly practices and their expulsion from the Church? He is confronted with a phase of the World in the Church. But alas! criticisms are made, but corrections are not forthcoming.
Church Union.
In an article in the April issue of the Free Church Monthly Record, under the general heading, “Fifty Years of Scottish Ecclesiastical Life,” by the Rev. Ewen MacRury, M.A., Dundee, with a paragraph entitled “Union with Free Presbyterian Church Sought,” the writer quotes the late Rev. Principal John MacLeod as stating that the refusal of the Free Presbyterian Church to hold a Conference (on Union) with a Committee of the Free Church, involved “a policy of disunion.” He (Principal MacLeod) further stated, “Division was being pursued though it was plain that what does justify the making of a separation does not justify the maintaining of it.” These unfounded charges, uttered by way of self-justification in connection with his own wrong action, have been so often and so justly refuted that it would be only a waste of valuable space to quote such statements of refutation here. It is, however, necessary when these charges are repeated, to emphasise the fact that if there was Scriptural ground for separation in 1893, as most assuredly there was, there has been nothing but increasing reason for the maintaining and continuance of such ecclesiastical and denominational separation ever since. Ample Scriptural reasons were given in the article entitled, “The Present Duty of Free Presbyterians to their Church,” in the F.P. Magazine for October, 1948, as to why we should maintain uncompromisingly our present honoured denominational position. Where is the sincerity of professed love to the Saviour on the part of those who honour the Modernist enemies of Christ (who strip Him of His highest honour and glory, His Deity), as is done on the part of leading ministers and laymen of the Free Church of Scotland when they officially and cordially welcome to their Supreme Court the representatives and advocates of withering accursed Modernism? “What communion hath light with darkness, or Christ with Belial?”—J. P. MacQ.