Looking Back: The Church Led The Way

From May 1954

The Church Led the Way

50 years of Social Service

It was in 1904 that the Church of Scotland began to consider afresh its responsibilities to the poor and the needy, the friendless and those who had fallen under temptation, and to lead the way for the community in compassion for broken lives.

A Jubilee tribute from the Rt Rev the Moderator of the General Assembly

It is the privilege of the Moderator to speak, when and where he can, for the Church Of Scotland. The privilege is sometimes a responsibility not about its anxieties; but in congratulating the Social Service Committee upon the Jubilee of our Social Work, I do so with assurance.

When the Report of this Committee was presented to the General Assembly last year, I ventured to say from the Chair that here, at least, I was “on my own territory.” It was not an idle claim, for I grew up with this great department of the Church’s service. In the pre-union Church Of Scotland offices at 22 Queen Street there were two rooms, very familiar to me in my boyhood and youth. The one was occupied by Mr Thomas Nicol, the first Secretary of the Social Work Committee. The other provided not very adequate accommodation for the original staff – Mr J.C. Lennie, the Honorary Treasurer; Mr A.F. Wallace and Mr J.H. Lauder, the Deputies of the Committee, my father, who was Cashier, and a lady typist. This was “the day of small things,” but the work was fortunate in those who accepted the responsibilities of leadership – such men as Lord Polwarth, the first Convenor of the Committee, and his successor, Dr David Watson, who did so much to awaken the Church to its responsibilities within the social and industrial field.

From such modest beginnings as these the Social Service of our Church has become, in the course of fifty years, the greatest enterprise of its kind in Scotland. Its ministries cover almost every aspect of the social problem and every period of human life from childhood to old age.  It has adapted itself to radical changes in the pattern of social life, so that instead of being rendered redundant by the Welfare State, it has integrated itself within it. How I wish that every member of the Church could see – as I have seen during this Moderatorial Year – what these ministries really mean, not in terms of printed statistics in a Blue Book or a pew leaflet, but in terms of the promise of life given to children with no such promise; security and a Christian background given to youth otherwise denied them; hope and a loving discipline given to the unfortunate and the erring; comfort with pride and self-respect to the aged in the eventide of life. Shall I ever forget my visit to Belmont Castle on a lovely autumn day, the gardens ablaze with colour, the gracious and spacious rooms, and the old folk who, at the time when life so often dwindles to a point of weary isolation, had found in deed and truth the shelter of Mother Church?

Let us thanks God for this great work, and in doing so let us remember with gratitude those who have laboured to make it what it is: a succession of devoted Convenors, and a great body of men and women who have served in the work, not as a job but as fulfilling a Christian vocation. Said one woman amongst them to me: “ I have been the mother of none, and yet I have been the mother of many, and as proud of my boys as any mother of them all.” This indeed is the Church in Action and the Gospel of the Inasmuch. To all who have served this cause a great debt is owed, not by the Church only but by Scotland itself; and on the occasion of the celebration of this Jubilee I venture, on behalf of both, to wish the Committee and its Convenor, Rev R.B. Notman, Godspeed, and to thank their secretary, Dr Lewis Cameron, for all that we owe to his vision, enterprise and courage.

-          J. Pitt-Watson, Moderator

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