THE FIRST CHURCH.

Evening Star, Issue 2972, 28 August 1872, Page 2

THE FIRST CHURCH.

To the Editor. Sir, —I never was more disgusted in my life than on reading the motion carried at a congregational meeting of the First Church, held on Tuesday evening. It was to the effect that the congregation express their regret at Mr Sutherland, their beloved pastor, being about to take his departure from their midst, and that they regard the call as one from the Great Head of the Church to a higher sphere of usefulness in promoting the interests of His kingdom. Surely the force of humbug can no further go ! It is patent to every one, patent as a town scandal, that it is, owing, and solely owing, to the long engendering and ultimate explosion of the meanest passions and feelings, equally on the part of minister and congregation, that this “ call” to the “ beloved pastor ” has been compassed, that this “ separation ” has to be endured, and that this thus happily-led-to a “ higher sphere of operations” has been attained. I am sick of the bastard and and spurious Christianity that can so misrepresent and mislead ; and grieved at the desolating effect which it has upon a world that so much needs to be taught the truthfulness and reality of the Gospel of Christ. In what terms would the “ Great Head of the Church” (so, almost blasphemously, associated with this proceeding) have alluded to it*? To the act of this Kirk Session, Deacons’ Court, and Christian (sic) Assembly? In terms of a kind, similar to those in which He addressed the Scribes and Pharisees of His day, with a “ Woe unto you, hypocrites?” He would have reminded them that His doctrines inculcated holiness and truth ; and, with a scourge of small cords, would He have drawn them forth from His courts and back to their own place in a world of accommmodating morality and sham. A.