THE only business we had before us at this Committee last year was the remit from the Synod, being a communication received from the Convener of the Church and Nation Committee of the Church of Scotland requesting us or the Synod to appoint representatives to attend a joint conference as between the various denominations in Scotland on the question of Sabbath Trading.
We held a meeting at which the various documents submitted by the Church and Nation Committee of the Church of Scotland were considered and we were influenced by the recollection that hitherto in regard to this question of conference and co-operation the Church has been guided by the policy of stipulating that the recognition of the universal and perpetual obligation of the Fourth Commandment be a minimum basis of conference and co-operation, and we examined the documents in the light of this policy and were not able to satisfy ourselves that there was any formal recognition of the divine authority of the Sabbath in terms of the Fourth Commandment; and secondly we decided that we should not commit the Church to representation.
We wrote the Convener of the Church and Nation Committee of the Church of Scotland and offered to consider whether and to what extent we could independently support any action which they had already taken or might take in the future and invited him to be good enough to send us details of such action. The Convener wrote us to say that he had forwarded the letter to the Convener of the Sub-Committee on Sabbath Observance, but we heard no more about it, so consequently we took no further action in the matter. That is all I have to report.