Notes on the Assemblies.—In our next issue we hope to give a short review of the proceedings at the General Assemblies of the Presbyterian Churches in Scotland and also of the Irish Presbyterian Church Assembly.
The Advancing Tide.—At a meeting of Ayr Presbytery (Church of Scotland) held on Tuesday, 30th June, a motion was passed expressing regret at the fact of the Ayr Home Guard holding sports on Sabbath. Mr. J. Percival Agnew, Symington, an elder we presume said that “Sunday was the best day the Home Guard had of getting the most of the men together. The meeting had been held to keep up the members’ interest in the Home Guard and to encourage others to join.” Mr. Agnew bears an honoured name of one who was a noble advocate of the binding obligations of the Fourth Commandment. It is encouraging that the Presbytery expressed regret at this glaring act of Sabbath desecration though we would prefer that its condemnation was stronger and that some of the speeches were less of the milk and water type. Gaps are being made in the walls and the incoming tide is flowing with a rush that bodes ill for the future.
The Downgrade Movement in the Irish Presbyterian Church.—At its last meeting of Assembly the Irish Presbyterian Church celebrated the Tercentenary of the first Presbytery at Carrickfergus on June 10th, 1642. The Unitarians of Ireland who are Presbyterians in their church government sent a message of greeting to the General Assembly in which they say that they treasured “all in our common heritage that serves to establish bonds of fellowship and community of interest between the two bodies.” The General Assembly of the Irish Presbyterian Church sent a reciprocal message. What a change has come over the Church which the Lord by the labours of His honoured servant, Dr. Cooke, saved from the deadening blight of Arianism. The Assembly at its meetings appointed Prof. Davey to the Principality of the Assembly’s College, Belfast—an event that speaks all too plainly of the drift of Irish Presbyterianism.
Juvenile Crime.—Mr. Thomas Johnston, Secretary of State for Scotland speaking recently in Edinburgh City Chambers at the Annual Meeting of the Edinburgh Juvenile Organisations Committee called attention to the increased juvenile delinquency to-day. In 1941, said Mr. Johnston, there were found guilty in Scotland in Juvenile Courts no fewer than 14,253, and of these more than half were under the age of 14. It was true that there were crimes and crimes. Malicious mischief, for example, accounted for over 3,000 of the cases, and he felt bound to say that among these convicts for malicious mischief, but for the grace of God,
might have been in their time himself and others present at that meeting. But the convictions of over 6,000 for theft and nearly 3,000 for house-breaking were appalling. In some towns they were securing reductions by one means or another, but in most towns there were increases, and some of the increases were alarming. For example, in Kilmarnock the increase of convictions of children under 14 had risen from 18 in the year 1937 to 238 in the year 1941. Dundee city figures also had more than doubled. The over 14 to age 17 group was not so alarming. Indeed, Glasgow had a deduction of 1,000, and Lanark County was down from 549 to 452. Edinburgh, too, was showing a decrease, but he could not understand why Paisley should have convictions of 212 and Falkirk convictions of only 44.