THE General Assembly of the Church of Scotland met at Edinburgh on Tuesday, 24th May, under the Moderatorsip of Professor H. R. Mackintosh. The Lord High Commissioner for the year was Sir Iain Colquhoun, Bart., of Luss.
On Wednesday it was reported by Prof. Daniel Lamont that the economies effected by local unions and otherwise had been counterbalanced by a fall in congregational contributions. It is significant that while one reason which was given for the Unions of 1900 and 1929 was the husbanding of financial contributions, that in both cases the fall in contributions filled the ecclesiastical leaders with some concern. When the Foreign Mission Report was given in on Thursday, the convener’s speech contained proposals for drastic retrenchment which included a cut of 5 per cent. in the salaries of missionaries as part of a general reduction in annual expenditure of £10,000. It was finally agreed by the Assembly that there be no reductions this year.
Friday, 27th May, was a great day in the Assembly. The Archbishop of Canterbury was there and addressed the Assembly on what is known as the Lambeth Appeal, in which an invitation is given to the Church of Scotland to enter into unrestricted conference with the Church of England. The business of the conference, he said, was not to negotiate terms of Union. That
stage was far distant, if it would ever be reached. The Assembly, by a large majority, decided to adopt a motion in which the invitation was accepted. Rev. Dr. Hector Macpherson and Rev. G. S. Gunson, New Monkland, each moved amendments. The decision of the Assembly has caused serious questionings in the minds of many who are beginning to wonder where all this modern obsession for outward union of the Churches is to end, for, notwithstanding the assurances of the ecclesiastical leaders that union is not meant, still there is an uneasy feeling that the Church of Scotland is moving towards the Church of England, which, in turn, is moving towards Rome.
On Saturday, 29th May, the Rev. William A. Reid, a retired minister in Glasgow, petitioned the Assembly to appoint a special committee to “give needed counsel to the Church in relation to those who exercise their spiritual gifts.” The Assembly rejected the petition. Mr. Reid’s idea of exercising spiritual gifts is by employing mediums, etc.
The question as to whether women would have a place as deacons and elders in the Church was remitted back to the committee dealing with the subject for further consideration.
The Rev. Dr. Donald Fraser, in reporting on the Forward Movement, said that the real forward movement had been expressed in the work of the committees and the work of the congregations. When one remembers the advertising and the other publicity efforts that were made to make this a never-to-be-forgotten event in the religious life of Scotland, one cannot help wondering if those who launched it with such blowing of trumpets see the utter emptiness of the whole business. It will take a great deal more than organised work by committees to revive a dead Church. We may whip a dead animal, but we cannot make it move.
On Wednesday, 1st June, Prof. H. R. Mackintosh reported that a remarkable measure of support had been given by Presbyteries to a proposal that a brief re-statement of the Church’s faith should be prepared. Such a statement would provide an answer to the question: What living belief does the
Church stand to-day for? The formulation of a new Catechism was also urged in overtures presented by the Presbyteries of Glasgow and Annandale. These were remitted to the Committee on Re-statement of the Church’s Faith. In one of them it was contended that the Larger and Shorter Catechisms were no longer acceptable. The tender consciences of men departing from the faith no longer get relief in Declaration Acts. New creeds and new catechisms must be made to meet the scruples of those who have very few scruples in breaking their ordination promises.
The Report of the Committee on Public Worship and Aids to Devotion was presented by Rev. Dr. G. W. Stewart. He moved that a day be set apart, preferably the first Sabbath of November, for the special remembrance of the blessed dead, and that the Committee be authorised to prepare a series of services suitable for use on the commemorative occasions in the Christian year, including the Day of Remembrance of the faithful departed, with additional services for various natural and sacred occasions. It was decided that such a book should first be submitted to the Assembly. That there are some in the Church of Scotland who are coquetting with prayers for the dead is causing serious concern among many in that Church, and it is to be hoped they will have sufficient courage to demand that the ecclesiastical leaders will call a halt ere it is too late.
It is many a year since the Church of Scotland began to drift, and at her last Assembly she gave ominous signs of the direction of the drift. Union is strength, we are told, but it can be strength in error.
FREE CHURCH.
The Assembly of the Free Church also met at Edinburgh on 24th May. The Moderator was Rev. Peter Clarkson, Culter. Mr. Clarkson gave an address on “The Duty of a Witnessing Church.” In the evening the Welfare of Youth Report was given in by the Rev. William Macleod, Dornoch, and references were made to the Church magazines—The Monthly Record and
The Instructor—lectures in religious instruction to Free Church students in the training colleges, and the recently issued volume of Gaelic sermons. Attention was called to the very unsatisfactory nature of the new syllabus of religious instruction drawn up by the Combined Committee of the Church of Scotland and of the Educational Institute. Mr. Roderick Cameron, Inverness, called attention to the deficit for last year of £579, an increase of £160 in the year. He suggested that they must either increase the prices of their magazines or get more liberal collections for the Welfare of Youth.
On Wednesday, 26th May, the Report on the Sustentation Fund was given in by the Rev. John Macleod, Hope Street, Glasgow. A decrease of £271 was reported, but when it was remembered, said Mr. Macleod, that there was a very large increase in the opening months of the year, the decrease did not look so serious. As they had a balance of £3,361, the Committee, he said, felt justified in recommending that the Assembly declare the same equal dividend to members as last year, viz., £250, exclusive of the premium of £7 payable to the Widows’ and Orphans’ Fund. Mr. Macleod, in reply to certain criticisms, said that as a committee they were going to face 1932 with a considerable debit balance on the working of the year 1931.
At the evening sederunt on Wednesday, delegates from other Churches were received, including Dr. George E. Ross, who represented the Presbyterian Church in Canada; Dr. Kepler, General Secretary of the Church of Christ in China; and Dr. Soucek, of the Evangelical Church of the Czech Brethren, Czecho-Slovakia. The number of delegates now received is smaller than used to be the case. Evidently pressure has been brought to bear on those responsible for these delegates appearing before the Assembly to be a little more careful in their selection. There is still room for improvement, and one cannot help expressing surprise that a Church like the Free Church, with the claims it makes to purity of worship, etc., should receive a delegate from the Presbyterian Church of Canada. Any one who knows anything about Canada is perfectly well
aware that this Church, though it did not go in with the Union, has hymns, instrumental music, and other worldly accompaniments.
The Report of the Public Questions Committee was given in on Thursday forenoon by Rev. A. M. Ross, Oban, in which references were made to legislation to restrict cheap railway fares on the Sabbath, the Universities (Scotland) Bill, inroads of the Church of Rome, gambling, the indifference to religion, the Cinema Bill, Sabbath observance, etc. Rev. Kenneth A. Maerae, Mr. W. R. T. Sinclair and Major Carswell dealt with different phases of the Sabbath question.
In the afternoon the Foreign Mission Report was submitted by Rev. Dr. Stewart, in which he reviewed the Free Church’s wide activities in the Mission Field. Mr. Smith called attention to the financial aspect and strongly emphasised the need for more liberal giving if the Free Church were to get out of its present difficulties.
On Friday forenoon the Union Committee’s Report was submitted by Prof. Donald Maclean. Progress had been made, he said, in the negotiations with the Original Secession and the Reformed Presbyterian Churches, but, he regretted to say, the Free Presbyterian Church had closed the door against any conference, even on the generous basis offered to them. “The shame of the refusal was theirs,” he said, “and the serious responsibility for a continued separation must be borne by them also.” In reading Dr. Maclean’s report one would think that the negotiations between the Original Secession and the Reformed Presbyterian Churches were going smoothly on and were about to end in union. At the time he delivered his speech he must have known what was said in the Original Secession Synod. We reproduce it here, for the benefit of our readers, from the Glasgow Herald :—
“The Rev. Prof. Robert Morton, D.D., presenting the report of the Union Committee, stated that, while the outlook was not as hopeful as it had sometimes been represented, progress had been made in consultations with the Free Church of Scotland
and the Reformed Presbyterian Church. The Rev. Prof. Davidson, in seconding, remarked that the report was a very inspiring utterance, but confessed that he had some difficulty in thinking that union with the Free Church of Scotland would be early consummated. There were three things that made such a union peculiarly difficult—first, the ethos of the Free Church was different from theirs; its type of mind was negative, theirs positive; it concentrated on protest, they on declaration. Secondly, they had an ecclesiastical freedom which was quite unknown in the other two churches. It would be a pity if fellowship with other churches were curtailed through an incorporating union with the two smaller churches. Thirdly, there was a desire to-day in their Church to return to the source from whence they sprung. All their tendencies were towards a national church. The attitude of the Free Church in the past had been antagonistic to the national church in a way theirs could never be. There was a danger of associating themselves with a group of Churches which strengthened each other in antagonism to the national Church. He suggested, in conclusion, that they should continue their negotiations. If all the difficulties he had mentioned were overcome it might be their duty to unite.” Dr. Maclean surely knew of that speech when he presented his report.
The Synod of the Reformed Presbyterian Church met later, and the newspaper report says: “The important question of union with the Original Secession Church and the Free Church was discussed fully by the Synod on Tuesday morning. The report of the Union Committee stated that agreement regarding certain vital differences was altogether unlikely. In view of these difficulties, the Synod came to a unanimous finding that, while fully recognising and appreciating the brotherliness and kindness manifested by the other two conferring Churches, it determined that real union was not at present feasible. The Committee was continued in order to consider closer co-operation or even federation, should such seem practicable.” From these reports it looks like that these two Churches will have to bear the shame
and responsibility, such as it is, for a continued separation, as well as the Free Presbyterian Synod. We agree with the Monthly Record of the Free Church that the Reformed Presbyterian Synod have clearly indicated that negotiations which have union for their end are “off,” and that in the Original Secession Synod the prospects for union are by no means bright.
The Rev. Andrew Sutherland moved that the General Assembly instruct their committee to enquire into the present existing differences between the Free and Free Presbyterian Churches and report to the next Assembly. Many of the differences between the Free Church and the Free Presbyterian Church had vanished in Mr. Sutherland’s opinion. Only two remained—sales of work and social meetings. Our memory is still good enough to remember how expert Mr. Sutherland was in his Free Presbyterian days of seeing differences between the two Churches, but, in common with some of his brethren who have passed over, the atmosphere in which he now moves has changed all that. He has been represented as making sport over social meetings, but from fuller reports of his speech it is evident that he had no such intention, but this does not lessen the causelessness of the merriment that greeted some of his remarks. This exhibition of “childish levity,” as reported in the press, in which some of the fathers and brethren indulged, shows that they have not yet realised the gravity of the worldly element connected with these social gatherings. The Rev. Kenneth A. Macrae seconded Mr. Sutherland’s motion, and in doing so called attention to Prof. Davidson’s speech in the Original Secession Synod, in which he indicated that there was a desire in his Church for union with the Church of Scotland. “If that was the case,” said Mr. Macrae, “what was the use of their talking about union?” He further said that he understood that the Original Secession Church accepted the civil law in regard to marriage with a deceased wife’s sister. He indicated he was not satisfied with the Free Church’s Commission as to the Declaration of Assembly, 1917. In replying, Prof Maclean gave utterance to a statement of an extraordinary nature, if we
understand him aright. In belabouring the Free Presbyterians for their refusal to enter into negotiations with the Free Church, he said if the discontinuance of sales of works and tea meetings was to be made obligatory in their Church, it was a case of putting these things on a level with belief in our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, if this had been a newspaper report of his speech, one might say that the reporter had failed to grasp his meaning, but as our authority is the Monthly Record of the Free Church we take it that it is a correct report of what Prof. Maclean said. Surely Dr. Maclean does not need to be told that there are many things we hold to be obligatory, though that does not raise them to the status of belief in our Lord Jesus Christ. It is obligatory on Free Church ministers not to use instrumental music in divine worship, but when did Dr. Maclean or any one else believe that the Free Church put this on a level with belief in our Lord. The more one considers the bearing of this statement the more does one wonder what was his object in making it. We are sure our readers, however, are intelligent enough not to be carried away by its implication. It sometimes happens when excess of zeal to belabour a troublesome opponent masters one that it ends in the castigator making himself appear ridiculous and not the castigated.
Mr. Sutherland’s motion was lost by a large majority, yet the door is still standing wide open, so we are told, for us. As so much space was devoted in our last issue to this subject, we do not purpose to make further remarks on it meantime.