Fiddling while Rome is Burning.
The following is a report from one of the dailies of a concert held at Dunfermline recently under the auspices of the Church Service and Social Guild: “The audience was thrilled by a Maori tribal dance, executed in costume by the Rev. Eric Rule, New Zealand. Also from New Zealand, the Rev. J. Kingsley Fairbairn delighted with a selection of violin and ‘cello solos. Rev. W. M. McIntyre, Rothesay, baritone, and Rev. Hamish C. Mackenzie, Bridge of Allan, elocutionist, completed a quartette of ministerial entertainers that would be hard to equal.” Things are coming to a fine pass in Scotland when ministers are assuming the role of public entertainers. No doubt some of the Scottish clergy feel more at home in this role than preaching the gospel of the grace of God. The Rev. Hamish C. Mackenzie is the minister who won some notoriety recently in expressing certain outrageous views on the Old Testament teaching.
Scotland’s First Woman Minister.
Mrs. Kenmure, formerly Miss Vera Findlay, the first woman minister in Scotland is in hot water. After the baptism of her son she sent in her resignation to the congregation. At a congregational meeting it was decided to ask her to withdraw the resignation but the majority was only 21 while the minority was large. Mrs. Kenmure, it would appear, is met with considerable opposition in the congregation and she deemed it her duty to withdraw. Troubles will arise in congregations where men minister to them but it is significant that Scotland’s first woman minister has had to resign after a pastorate of five years. Mr. Spurgeon in one of his sermons takes Ralph Erskine to task for calling the Woman of Samaria “a female preacher.” “I am not so sure,” he adds, “of the title. If women preached just as long as she did, and no longer, no one would find fault with them; her testimony lies all in one verse and is just an invitation and a question. There needed no more words; no, not another half word. She said exactly enough; for she was successful in leading the men to Jesus, who would do the preaching far better than she could. I cannot call her words a sermon; at any rate, you would not care for me to preach so briefly.”