During August last Bishop of Southwark, Dr. Stockwood denounced one of his clergy, Rev. Rice Harris, 72 years, of St. Andrew’s, Carshalton, Surrey, for practising Roman Catholic Rites in St. Andrew’s. Rev. Harris resigned, and this unusual and necessary disciplinary action caused a sensation and stir throughout Church of England circles. We do not know if the Bishop is an evangelical, but it seems he acted as he did to secure stricter adherence to Church of England forms of service, authorised by Parliament for the Established Church but widely and persistently ignored by clergyman. Of
course these illegal and Romish actions in Church of England Churches have been well known for years to many in England and to us in Scotland. The Rev. Dr. P. E. Hughes, editor of the Churchman, and in charge of Mortlake Parish Church, one of the foremost authorities on observance, stated to a London, Daily Telegraph, reporter: “The present state of the church of England is not such as to encourage complacency. The difference in teaching and in forms of worship within its ranks are so fundamental as to present to the eye of the onlooker a picture of disorderliness and chaos.” What the Dr. stated to the reporter we, even in Scotland, have known for years to be the case in the Church of England. And many in the Church of Scotland recently wished to lead their Church into union with the said chaos. What ignorance or determination to link up with Anglo-Catholicism, actuated some of the Church of Scotland leaders in seeking to effect union with the Church of England, and in its present state! To say they were unaware of the wide and deep divisions within the Church of England while negotiating for union, would have been inexcusable ignorance. The Daily Telegraph reporter recorded that within the city limits of Birmingham at least three Church of England churches practice a form of the Mass. So the cry for union on the part of Canterbury and others should be a cry directed not to Presbyterians in Scotland, and Free Churches in England, but to the very heart of the Church of England itself.
Shetland Presbytery against Women Ministers.
Shetland Presbytery of the Church of Scotland announced in October that they are against women ministers and elders, and their statement declared that a feminine ministry was not contemplated in the Scriptures and that women elders were unacceptable. The Presbytery were on the right lines in being guided by the Scriptures, irrespective of all the propaganda for women to be brought into office in the Church, based on arguments which disregarded Scripture.