The Fundamentalist controversy concerning the Baptist Theological College of Scotland: on October 25, 1944, May Hossack wrote to her husband, George, who was on active service in the war, describing the events that took place in Charlotte Baptist Chapel during the assembly of the Baptist Union of Scotland.

Following a report of the Sunday School Committee, John Shearer, president of the Baptist Union in 1936, criticized the material used by teachers. He "shouted that it was full of Modernistic teaching--it denied the Miracles of Christ.... There were jeers and cat-calls, and calls of supports too, from all over the meeting ... the row and hubbub was terrific." A motion was presented to the assembly that the Baptist Theological College should be incorporated into the Union because of what Shearer called "the cancerous growth of Modernism." "The College," he said, "denies that this Book is the Word of God.... It is robbing us of our evangelical faith.... The College is an evil thing and unclean.... I have proof that ... two of the present tutors are Unitarians." Following a lively debate, Holms Coats, principal of the college, was asked to speak, and challenged Shearer "to name the two leaders of the College who are Unitarians." Shearer "stood up and yelled at Holms Coats `The Two, are yourself and Dr. Miller.'" May Hossack commented that "the meeting went quite -wild at this point." (1)

The debate was the culmination of a controversy that began in the 1930s, following the discovery that Eric James Roberts, a fellow student with Shearer in the early days of the Scottish college, and a close friend of Holms Coats, was a Unitarian. (2) Shearer was convinced that the dangers of Modernism had affected the Scottish college from the beginning of its existence, through its close ties with the University of Glasgow, and that men like Roberts and Holms Coats who had studied at Mansfield College, Oxford, and Marburg in Germany had accepted the theological perspectives of German Rationalism. (3)

John Shearer

Shearer was born in Glasgow on August 20, 1874, the great, great grandson of Flora MacDonald, the companion of Bonnie Prince Charlie in the '45 rebellion. Shearer was converted and baptized in 1890, eventually becoming a member of John Street Baptist Church in Glasgow, where his grandfather had been one of the pastors. (4) Shortly afterwards, Shearer and his parents moved their membership to Queens Park Baptist Church. In 1892, his father, William Shearer, became the pastor of Kelso Baptist Church in the Scottish Borders. (5) Although John Shearer accompanied his parents to Kelso, lack of employment opportunities led him to return to Glasgow to stay with an aunt in Cowcaddens and join the South Side Baptist Church (6) in the Gorbals, (7) where John McLean, a great friend of the family, was pastor. (8)

McLean was a strong influence in Shearer's life and ministry, inducting him into his pastoral charges in Galashiels and Stirling. Brought up in the Free Church in Argyllshire, McLean moved to Stifling, was converted, and became a Coast Missionary in Eyemouth in 1879. Two years later, he changed his views on baptism, returned to Stifling and was baptized through the ministry of George Yuille. (9) In 1883, he received a call to the pastorate in Dumbarton. During the next six years, he not only attended classes at Glasgow University and the Free Church College, but he also founded congregations in Alexandria and Clydebank. In 1889, he moved to South Side Baptist Church where, for the next twenty-nine years, he exercised a strong evangelistic ministry. The church grew from 150 members in 1889 to 432 in 1922. He became the convener of the evangelistic committee in 1904 and then president of the Baptist Union of Scotland in 1906. He preached

   the old evangelical truths of the Gospel with such fervour and sincerity,
   and with such an insight into, and knowledge of the human heart, that the
   pews in the new building quickly filled and Victoria Place Church became a
   centre of light and leading in the district. (10)

McLean encouraged Shearer to enter the newly formed Baptist Theological College. In 1895, he matriculated at Glasgow University, where he graduated with an M.A. in 1900. During this time, he met Holms Coats and Eric Roberts, and both Roberts and Shearer attended the moral philosophy classes of Henry Jones. Jones's teaching led Roberts to believe that "the deity of Jesus" was a "later theological accretion (due in large part to Paul) extraneous, unnecessary, undesirable and illusory." (11) Later in his life, Shearer commented that "the Arts course [at the university] displaced the Theological and we were urged [by the college] above all to secure our degree in Arts. It was a false preparation for the ministry and showed the growing baleful influence of Modernism." (12)

Shearer had three ministries in Scotland: Stirling Street, Galashiels (1900-13), Stifling (1913-21) and Rattray Street, Dundee (1921-41). He retired to Glasgow, to join Adelaide Place Baptist Church, where he remained until his death in 1961. His ministries were characterized by expository preaching and evangelistic passion, faithfully preaching "the old gospel." (13) When he received the call from Stirling, Shearer commented on the desire that he had "to preach among you the grand old verities of that old yet ever flesh Theology which are the very life of our life and which were never more needed than they are today." (14) Throughout his ministries, he conducted evangelistic missions in other congregations. Every year, he held a week of evangelistic meetings in his own congregation. During his time in Dundee, the evangelist Gypsy Smith (15) visited the city in 1924. This resulted in fifteen converts attending the Rattray Street church. It came as no surprise to his friends when he was appointed the evangelism convener of the Baptist Union of Scofiand in 1926.

One of the most formative experiences of Shearer's life was his visit to the scene of the Welsh Revival in 1905. In April 1905, he commented on his visit in the Scottish Baptist Magazine, speaking of the "great waves of unseen power" which evoked "prayer like a torrent.... God is felt to be very near, and hot tears tell of deep repentance and reawakened love.... Strong men [are] broken down in an agony of remorse." He returned to the Scottish Borders "with a new heart and a new bible," (16) and "much blessing followed" as the church held nightly meetings from April 3 to July 8, 1905, with many conversions. (17)

Shearer made wider contact with Baptists in Europe and America by attending meetings of the Baptist World Alliance in London in 1905, Berlin in 1908, Philadelphia in 1911, and Stockholm in 1923. He also made a six-week visit to the Holy Land in 1925. These visits exposed Shearer to the wider Baptist world and to the changes taking place within evangelicalism on both sides of the Atlantic. For example, he would have been aware of the condemnation by the Northern General Baptist Convention in 1920 of liberal tendencies among Baptists. (18)

The influence of the Welsh Revival, with its "conservative evangelical ethos," (19) and the North America Baptist evangelical constituency brought an awareness of the controversy surrounding American Fundamentalism. In his presidential address in 1936, Shearer spoke of the "danger [that] threatens us at the present moment. The new Rationalism that has invaded the Church has taken our feet from the firm ground of our faith and made us to flounder miserably in a quagmire of doubt." He maintained the need to hold on to the fundamentals of Baptist faith such as belief in the Bible as "the Word of the Living God" and "our Lord's Deity" which will oppose the "insidious Unitarianism that ... is deep seated in the churches of our land." Thirdly, he spoke of the "atoning death" of Christ as a "perfect substitution." This, he contended, was "the central truth of Christianity" and "we must thank God for Karl Barth who takes his place in the noble line of the great Evangelical Theologians who has recalled the Church to the long-neglected Doctrines of Grace." He concluded by mentioning the Lord's resurrection, the fact of the new birth which opposed the "New Rationalism" with its "system of psychology," and also the blessed hope of the church which he identified as the imminent return of Christ. (20)

Fundamentalism, Modernism, and Conservative Evangelicals

The history of Fundamentalism, and its relationship to Evangelicalism, has been well documented in the twentieth century. (21) Fundamentalism among evangelicals (22) arose from the doctrinal controversies that embroiled American churches at the turn of the twentieth century when theological Modernism began to take root in seminaries, Bible colleges, and in leadership positions in various denominations. (23) Harriet Harris described it as an "awkward coalition of diverse movements and groups who represented a range of theological opinion" but whose "foe was theological modernism." (24) Though Fundamentalism began as a North American church phenomenon, it was a reaction to theological developments that had their origin in Europe, particularly in Germany, in the nineteenth century. A central tenet of Modernism was the historical-critical approach to Bible interpretation.

Modernism quickly increased in influence, especially from the middle to the end of the nineteenth century, and by the early years of the twentieth century it had became an influential theology among theologians in Germany, Europe, the United Kingdom, and America. British and American evangelicals shared a general concern over the issues being discussed. Although David Bebbington argued that Fundamentalism did not make serious inroads among British Baptists, (25) many people among the churches of the denomination echoed Shearer's concern in Scotland. (26)

The name "Fundamentalist" was popularized by a series of books that were published over a five-year period from 1910-15. The series, titled The Fundamentals, was composed of ninety articles written by sixty-four authors. (27) Hundreds of thousands of copies of The Fundamentals were distributed to Christian workers in the United States and twenty-one foreign countries. The articles defended the inspiration of the Bible; justification by faith; the new birth; and the deity, virgin birth, miracles, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. By the 1930s, when

   it became painfully clear that reform from within could not prevent the
   spread of modernism in major northern denominations, more and more
   fundamentalists began to make separation from America's major denominations
   an article of faith. Although most who supported fundamentalism in the
   1920s still remained in their denominations, many Baptist
   dispensationalists and a few influential Presbyterians were demanding
   separatism. (28)

Although Shearer did not separate himself from the Baptist Union of Scotland, he adopted an isolationist approach in setting up an alternative Evangelical Baptist Bible College in Glasgow.

W. Holms Coats

W. Holms Coats was a fellow student with Shearer in the early days of the Scottish College. He graduated with an honors degree from Glasgow University. He moved to Oxford, graduating with a B.A. in theology in 1906. During his time in Oxford, Coats was undoubtedly influenced by the principal of Mansfield College, A. M. Fairbairn. (29) Fairbairn entered the ministry of the Evangelical Union in Scotland. He had been educated at James Morison's Theological Academy in Glasgow. He left Scotland to become a Congregationalist. From 1886 to 1909, he was principal of Mansfield College, Oxford. Fairbairn was the "father of Liberal Evangelicalism among Congregationalists" and believed that the gospel message was encapsulated, not in the Church's creeds and traditions, (30) but in the "Fatherhood of God,"(31) especially as understood "through the consciousness of Christ's relationship to God as Son of the Father." (32)

However, by the turn of the century, Fairbairn's influence among Mansfield students began to decline as the students "felt that he had not kept abreast of newer theological thinking and was unable to guide them through the new exploration of the current German theology." (33) Fairbairn maintained his indebtedness to Hegel and "disappointed his students by maintaining silence in the theology of Albrecht Ritschl," (34) a deficit which Holms Coats would rectify during his studies in Germany. This did not diminish the overall influence of Fairbairn who instilled within Coats a conviction that "theology ... must engage with the thought of the age." (35) This desire to contextualize his theology distinguished Holms Coats from Shearer who was more content with maintaining a theological system from the halcyon days of evangelical awakenings.

Following his time in Oxford, Coats traveled to Marburg, having successfully won the first Baptist Union Scholarship under the Twentieth Century Fund. (36) Reflecting on his time in Marburg in 1907, he spoke of "the prevailing feeling in Scotland ... that in the sphere of religion Germany is the home of rationalism and a hotbed of heresy." He spoke of his appreciation of Professor Herrmann's "emphasis on the individual character of religious experience" along with his "openness of mind" in theological enquiry which made his students "indebted to him for a new view of old truth."

Willibold Herrmann was professor of dogmatic theology in Marburg. He was a proponent of the views of Albrecht Ritschl, "probably the most influential continental Protestant theologian between Schleiermacher and Barth ... the heyday of liberal Protestantism," (37) who dismissed the concept of Gospel miracles, including the resurrection, maintaining that "redemption has as much to do with the life as with the death of Jesus." (38) Coats believed that "Higher Criticism" if "rightly used, can only help Christianity." (39) Following ministries in Pitlochry (1909-14), South Shields (1914-21), and Marshall Street Church, Edinburgh (1921-28), he became pastor of Queens Park Church in Glasgow (1928-35). (40) He began to teach New Testament studies at the college in 1923 (41) and was appointed the new principal of the college in 1935. (42) In 1939, the University of Glasgow conferred on him the degree of doctor of philosophy. The 1930s and 1940s were some of the most difficult and controversial periods in the history of the college. Coats led the college through the period of war with Germany, serving as president of the union in 1938-39; and in the assembly of 1949, appreciation was expressed for his "able scholarship, his wide pastoral experience, his counsel and leadership." (43)

The antipathy which Shearer demonstrated toward Holms Coats did not became apparent until the 1940s. In 1921, Holms Coats inducted Shearer into Rattray Street in Dundee, speaking of "his personal acquaintance with Mr. Shearer as student and Pastor, and said he was a true servant of the living God." (44) During the summer session of 1921, Shearer had led one of the devotional classes and had spoken at the annual meeting held in Glasgow on October 19, 1921. During that address, he "expressed his gratitude to the College for the help it had been to him in fitting him for the great work of the ministry" and he highlighted "its doctrine, its discipline, and its devotion." He maintained that" a useful ministry can only grow out of a clear and vital appreciation of the great Christian verities. The value of a College training is inestimable." (45)

As late as 1938, Holms Coats preached at the Diamond Jubilee services in Rattray Street. (46) However, it became clear that Coats's advocacy of retaining Eric Roberts on the ministerial list during his 1933 trial for Unitarianism led Shearer to suspect that Coats himself was Unitarian. This is undoubtedly a misrepresentation of Coats's theological position. Roberts wrote an obituary of Holms Coats in the Mansfield College Magazine and stated very clearly that "although not agreeing with my modernist convictions he stood by me, nobly true to friendship, and said what he could for me at the Assembly, in complete disregard of his own interests." (47) However, in 1938, Coats delivered his presidential address in which many people detected a strong influence of modern biblical criticism. Shearer condemned Coats's address as one which "eulogized the leaders of Modernist Infidelity and spoke of the Bible as an erroneous book." (48)

Coats was anxious that the church desperately needed to "preach it [the gospel] in the language of our own day" and although it "cannot accommodate its central message to the spirit of the age ... it must speak that unchanging gospel in terms that will be intelligible to men." He believed that far from destroying the church's faith, the "modern critical study of the Bible has been of inestimable service" in taking some of "the great evangelical words--Incarnation, justification, sanctification, atonement" which "sound remote and archaic to many people and need to be re-minted into current coinage."

Coats defended the "modern approach to Scripture" demonstrated by men like Wheeler Robinson and T. R. Glover (49) "who have taught us to see in the Bible, not a book dictated by God, nor even one kept free from errors in fact and varying levels of moral value and authority" so that people need no longer be "disconcerted that there are discrepancies and contradictions in its pages."

He challenged the assembly to dismiss "charges of rationalism and infidelity against men whose consecrated labours have done so much to disarm skepticism and to save thinking men from the alternatives of sheer literalism on the one hand and infidelity on the other." (50)

The differences that began to emerge in the modernist controversy between Shearer and Coats had as much to do with family as with educational background. Following his graduation in Glasgow, Shearer immersed himself in the ministry of evangelism he had seen exemplified in the life of his own pastor, John McLean. This was bolstered by his experiences of the Welsh revival. For Shearer, the only hope of the church was to be found in a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit and a concentration on issues relating to evangelism. (51)

At the same time, Coats continued his education in Oxford and Marburg, immersing himself in the culture of these cities. Prior to his settlement in Pitlochry in 1909, he acted as subwarden of the Mansfield House Settlement in Canning Town, immersing himself in the current social problems of his culture. (52)

Shearer's Booklets on Modernism

Stewart Cole's The History of Fundamentalism, published in 1931, argued that Fundamentalism contended that modern theological thought attacked five foundational doctrines: the deity and virgin birth of Christ, the substitutionary atonement of Christ, the bodily resurrection of Jesus, and the second coming. (53) Although recent writers have argued for a less homogeneous understanding of Fundamentalism, (54) Shearer's booklets on Modernism (55) focused on these very doctrines, arguing that at each point Modernism was undermining the evangelical message which for many years had been faithfully preached from Scottish Baptist pulpits.

In his early ministry, Shearer agreed that Baptist churches did not have any

   Creed or Confession of Faith, believing the Scriptures of the Old and New
   Testament to be sufficient, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, to
   decide all questions of doctrine or government which may arise ...
   [thereby] granting to all its members the right of private judgement with
   regard to doctrinal truth, subject to the Word of God. (56)

However, in light of Eric Roberts's appeal to this principle in 1933 to maintain his modernistic beliefs and remain a Baptist minister, (57) Shearer expressed his concern that "the time has come for a clear statement of our Baptist Faith." "We must," he contended, "have a Baptist Confession of Faith, for a faith that cannot be confessed is a faith not worth confessing." (58)

Shearer was convinced that Modernism which he described as "the Menace of the Evangelical Faith" was "preached in so many of our pulpits and so craftily couched in Evangelical language that multitudes are being deceived by it." (59) Writing shortly after the war, he made good use of the analogy of Modernism which was creeping "stealthily into our life like a poison gas and for long we have been breathing it unconsciously." (60) He expressed a concern that "the Evangelical Faith is dying in our midst" and that the Baptist Theological College of Scotland which he believed was "deeply imbued with this German Rationalism" has "imparted it to its students." This had led several Baptist ministers to leave the denomination, some of them entering the Church of Scotland ministry, often perceived by some as an abandonment of their evangelical heritage.

During the 1944 debate with the assembly, Shearer used the example of the Marshall Street congregation in Edinburgh, where Holms Coats had ministered from 1921 to 1928. He spoke of how a once "flourishing church" had called a "succession of Modernistic preachers [and] it is what it is today." (61) It was a direct attack on students and lecturers of the college. From 1918 until 1936, the ministers of the church included Thomas Stewart, (62) Holms Coats, R. J. McCracken, (63) and Douglas Stewart. (64)

In his later booklets on Modernism, Shearer developed the theme he had mentioned in his presidential address in 1936. He stressed the importance of biblical inspiration, the reality of sin, the deity of Christ, the work of atonement, the bodily resurrection, the personal return of Christ, and the necessity of the new birth. He argued that each of these fundamental doctrines of the faith was being denied by the Modernism advocated in the Scottish College.

The Bible As the Word of God

Shearer asserted his conviction that the problem with Modernism lay primarily in its belief that "the Bible is not the Word of God" and that although "it may contain it, it is not [in and of itself] the Word of God." (65) He argued that a loss of conviction in the inspiration and infallible nature of Scripture led "Modernist Ministers" to find "little pleasure in preaching from it and [they] prefer to draw their texts from current literature, the sensational topic of the hour, or even songs that are sung in our streets." (66) He believed that "the doctrine of verbal inspiration ... is plain common sense, inevitable truth." (67)

In June 1944, Principal Coats, James Hair, (68) and A. B. Miller (69) sent out a leaflet defending the teaching of the college. It began by maintaining the "inspiration of the Bible" without adopting any particular understanding of the nature of that inspiration. (70) This was not necessarily unusual, for even a staunch evangelical like Graham Scroggie stated that "subscription to a particular definition of biblical inspiration was not, in his view, a test of doctrinal orthodoxy" and maintained that "if you demand that I subscribe to your theory of inspiration, I shall decline, but I am not on that account a Modernist." (71)

The Fall of Humankind

For Shearer, Modernism accepted the theory of evolution and rejected the biblical doctrine of the fall of humankind. "Evolutionary Philosophy is today the most potent ally of modernism" (72) because it leads to the doctrine of original sin being "scoffed at by Modernists" thereby undermining the need of salvation. Once again the college statement affirmed "the story of Genesis 1-11" as one which "embodies an eternal truth--that man is a sinner, needing to be saved by grace through faith" and that "sin" is "an inherited corruption of human nature." (73)

The Deity of Christ

The debacle over Eric Roberts, condemned as a Unitarian and removed from the accredited list of ministers in Scotland, had not been supported by all Baptists in Scotland. According to Shearer, when the issue was debated within the Council of the Baptist Union of Scotland, the college's "most popular lecturer plead[ed] ardently for this Unitarian ... asserting that he was `true to the heart of the Gospel.'" (74) During the assembly of 1933, seventy-three delegates opposed the motion to depose Roberts. Shearer believed that this was the "blackest day in the history of Scottish Baptists." (75) He condemned the way in which the "whole tutorial staff of the college warmly supported" Roberts, implying that they had all adopted Roberts's Unitarian views, suggesting that Christ "is Divine only in the same sense as we ourselves are Divine." (76) More likely, those who voted against his deposition were opposing the manner of his discipline rather than agreeing with his theological position.

In giving his own interpretation on these events, Shearer was able to cast serious doubts on the integrity, as well as the theological orthodoxy, of the college. Without referring to the events of 1933, the college statement simply reaffirmed the fact that "the teaching of the College regards Christ, not merely as a Good Man (as do the Unitarians) nor as a demi-god (as Arius maintained), but as the Son of God Incarnate, the Word made flesh, in whom God and man are perfectly united." (77) Shearer refused to accept this statement and said that the college "may issue a thousand statements: it will never remove the deep general conviction implanted that day, that it is an out and out Modernist institution." (78)

Atonement

Shearer maintained that the only evangelical model for understanding Christ's death was to view it as "sacrificial and expiatory, a real substitution of the Sinless One for the guilty sons of men." (79) He opposed the "Modernist" understanding of the work of Christ as a "subjective atonement" that brought about a "change in man's feeling towards God" rather than seeing the necessity of there being "a barrier [of sin] on God's side ... which must be removed." (80) He dismissed the "parade of Theories of the Atonement" believing that the penal theory of atonement was the only valid interpretation of biblical material. It was this aspect of theological reflection that finally divided modernists from evangelicals. (81)

The college statement argued for an objective and subjective understanding of the atonement. It spoke of the "Cross of Jesus Christ [as] the ground of man's redemption" because "in the Cross God judged our sins." However, it went on to argue that the "Cross is the manifestation of God's pardoning and redeeming love, the means by which that love is made available for us all through faith, and God's supreme appeal to the heart and conscience of mankind." (82)

The Second Coming of Christ

Shearer rejected any concept of "the slow age-long coming of the Kingdom; the gradual betterment of the world." That idea, he argued, "is strongly refuted by the Bible and by the grim facts of history." (83) Although many evangelicals had been attracted by similar postmillennial views, Shearer believed that Modernism had so stressed the moral and social improvement of society as the great goal of the church and the kingdom of God that the church was now failing to give "her whole energy ... to evangelistic ministry." (84)

Shearer also felt that the ecumenical movement, "largely inspired and guided by Modernist leaders," would lead Christians "in the direction of that great Apostate Church ... in which our own distinctive principles as Baptists will be completely obliterated." (85)

That open membership, the practice of allowing profession of faith without believer's baptism, was showing a "steady increase" among Baptist churches was, for him, "another clear indication of the growing strength of this movement." (86)

In response, the college lecturers affirmed their belief in the "final consummation" of history without referring to the personal return of Christ, suggesting that "as to the time and manner of this consummation there are various views ... but as to the fact itself there is no uncertainty or dubiety." (87) It went on to declare that the work of the church was to "make disciples of all nations, to seek the unity of all Christians and to play the part of the Good Samaritan in the conditions of modern life." (88) Their breadth of vision, lost by many evangelicals through the twentieth century, would be recovered by the last quarter of the century. (89)

The Scottish college was not the only institution Shearer condemned. He also attacked the Baptist Missionary Society, in which two of his own daughters served as missionaries. He accused the colleges where missionaries were sent for training of being "deeply tainted with the new Rationalism." (90) Havelock Hall, a Baptist Union institution for the training of deaconesses, (91) came under special criticism. Their principal, Miss E. Webb Samuel, (92) was accused of stating that the "Bible was quite unnecessary on the Mission Field.... [A]s for conversion, she said that she did not believe in it nor had she herself ever experienced it." (93) In an unpublished letter to the Baptist Times, H. H. Rowley, professor of Old Testament at the University College of North Wales, Bangor, expressed his conviction that Shearer's accusations were "a travesty ... a pernicious slander" and suggested that he had taken "Dr. Goebbels as the model of his attack, and contempt for truth as the weapon of his armoury." (94)

Commission of Enquiry

Shearer used the Commission of Enquiry, set up in 1939, to examine the state of the union, to launch his attacks on the college. (95) Concern had been expressed at the number of ministers who had left the denomination for the Church of Scotland over the previous thirty-year period. (96) In October 1941, Holms Coats presented the commission's report, encouraging the union to a fresh examination of "the foundation of Baptist principles" and suggested that potential candidates for the ministry undergo a more thorough examination of their understanding of Baptist identity. (97) The assembly accepted the document as an "interim report" and asked the commission to probe more deeply "into the fundamental issue at stake, namely, the Baptist interpretation of the Church and Ministry." (98) Holms Coats and James Hair were named as joint conveners of the Commission. (99)

When a more comprehensive statement was presented to the 1943 assembly, a resolution by the Edinburgh association to "remit the Report to the churches and Associations for further consideration" was approved "by a large majority." (100) The financial aspects of the report found general acceptance and the members of the assembly expressed their desire to raise a large capital sum. (101)

The churches and associations discussed the report seriously. Queens Park Church in Glasgow purchased a copy of the report for every household, (102) and the Rattray Street Church in Dundee ordered fifty copies. (103) The Glasgow Association discussed the report in the Govan Church on May 15, 1944, the Lanarkshire Association held a day conference in Bellshillon on May 20, 1944, (104) while the Edinburgh Association discussed the report at four meetings in 1943 and 1944. (105)

The Dundee Church, where Shearer had ministered until his retirement, decided to "dissent absolutely from the finding of the Committee report." (106) J. Sidlow Baxter, minister of Charlotte Chapel, stated that "the Report failed to take cognisance of what he thought was the root cause of the present defection from the Baptist ministry, namely--a defective attitude to the inspiration and authority of the Bible" and raised the "whole question of the training of our ministry" casting doubt on the college and called for a "careful investigation ... into its teaching." (107) Baxter's views were mirrored among the deacons of Charlotte Chapel, and the Chapel published Shearer's Modernism pamphlets in the Chapel Record for June and July 1944. As Holms Coats anticipated the 1944 debate, he expressed his concern that the report, "though the matter is in some respects controversial," would be discussed "in a spirit of mutual tolerance in accord with their declared [Baptist] principle of religious liberty and freedom of conscience." (108)

The assembly in 1944 did not discuss the recommendations of the Commission of Enquiry in detail. (109) However, it accepted the main recommendations by 245 votes to 173, regarding central approval of ministerial candidates, the inclusion of an "impressive service of Ordination" at the beginning of ministerial service, a scheme of Probationary studies and a way of promoting a "better knowledge of Baptist principles and practice" among congregations, (110) Immediately after the vote was announced, the college representative's report was submitted and Shearer began his attack on the college.

The outcome of these events was the formation of the Evangelical Baptist Fellowship on June 27, 1944, and the beginning of evening classes in the Christian Institute in Bothwell Street, Glasgow, in January 1945. Both Shearer and T. J. Harvey lectured. In October 1946, the Evangelical Baptist Fellowship Bible College met at 153 West Regents Street and then moved to Queen's Drive in 1949. (111) Henry Curr, a former student of the College, a professor of McMaster University in Toronto, and principal of All Nation's Bible College became principal, (112) After a few years, with the number of students only totalling ten, with difficulties of settlement in Scotland, and a cooling of tempers, the college dosed and its former secretary and treasurer, D. S. K. Mcleay and J. D. Taylor, were elected presidents of the Union, in 1959 and 1965, respectively.

Reactions to the Controversy

In May 1945, the office bearers of the Baptist Union discussed the third Shearer booklet on Modernism. They expressed their opinion that it "contained several statements which were regarded as inaccurate." (113) They were concerned that the "circulation of these booklets had created trouble in several churches, and had proved a hindrance to the Thirty Thousand Guineas Fund appeal." (114)

During the next meeting of council, Matthew Wright, on behalf of the evangelistic committee, expressed his concern at the booldet's circulation in which "the majority of the [union's] conveners were accused of Modernism" and moved a motion "that this Council invites the Rev John Shearer to come forward and substantiate the charges made in the booklet." (115) Stanley Andrews, convener of the Young People's Committee, quoted from a letter he had received from the Edinburgh Youth Fellowship, where the "booklets were destroying fellowship and confusing the minds of young people" and "urged the council to dissociate itself from the charges made in the booklet." The council "resolved nem com to dissociate itself from the charges made and to put on record its disapproval of the procedure adopted in making the charges and to reaffirm its complete confidence in its conveners." (116)

Among the students, Holms Coats received great support from all the former and current members of the college. David Hicks, who attended from 1940 to 1946, recalls only one student, from Harper Memorial Baptist Church, who was sometimes "rather truculent" and tried to "catch out the Principal on some point of orthodoxy." (117) Hicks remembers Coats as being "a perfect gentleman." "I remember," he commented, "a student once making a point about `Shearer' and Dr. Coats retorting `Mr. Shearer to you, please.'"

Matthew McLachlan recalls the "exceedingly narrow orthodoxy, hard ultra-conservative" nature of Shearer's theology in comparison to that of Coats. He not only remembered "his teaching but also the quality of Christian life and devotion which he demonstrated. He was an upright, godly man, loving, caring and loveable and we students held him in the highest esteem, (118) ... Dr Coats' teaching was solidly based on a Trinitarian theology and partook of the depth and width of the Gospel ... and encouraged his students to explore the loving depths and wide-embracing nature of our message. (119) Sadly, many students of the college discovered that the Scottish scene was too stifling and several moved south of the border where they "found the English churches more tolerant" (120)

Conclusion

The failure of the Shearer's new college to find widespread support among the denomination was a great disappointment to Shearer's ministry. The concern expressed by Shearer at what he perceived to be the influence of Modernism, although widely shared by many within the denomination, did not attract the necessary support to maintain an alternative theological college. The reason for this does not lie in the smallness of the denomination but in the very real feelings of affection toward the work of the Baptist Theological College and in particular for Holm Coats.

The spirit Shearer demonstrated in debate and his actions in publishing his attacks and promoting a separate college did not win a wide approval within the denomination. (121) Even Sidlow Baxter did not vote to support the founding of a new college, and this may have had as much to do with the way Shearer "shouted" and "yelled" at Holms Coats as anything else. Indeed, a few years later, Sidlow Baxter would encourage Andrew MacRae and Peter Barbour, two students for the ministry, to study at New College and at the Baptist Theological College of Scotland. May Hossack expressed a shared concern of many people when she wrote to her husband George that "to split the Church would be a tragedy ... and I felt so sorry for Holms Coats ... maybe he is very wrong, but I do rather like him ... to form another College, well, where would we be? ... Mr. Shearer had a lot of supporters, but not for starting a new College!" (122)

Paradoxically, at a later session of the 1944 assembly, following the vigorous debate initiated by Shearer, the college was offered the "sincere congratulations" of the assembly "on the attaining of the Jubilee of the College, and of the growing place it now occupies in the life of the denomination." (123) Although constitutionally the college was an independent institution, not a member body of the Baptist Union of Scotland, the denomination as a whole valued its ministry and appreciated the character and commitment of its tutors.

(1.) Letter dated October 25, 1944, in the possession of the author.

(2.) See Kenneth B. E. Roxburgh, "Eric Roberts and Orthodoxy among Scottish Baptists," Baptist Quarterly, forthcoming in 2001.

(3.) See Eric Roberts, "Life at Mansfield," Scottish Baptist Magazine (April 1907): 72-73; and Holms Coats, "Life at Marburg," Scottish Baptist Magazine (September 1907): 162-63.

(4.) Minutes, Stifling Street Baptist Church, Galashiels, Scotland, November 6, 1904. Located in Galashiels Baptist Church.

(5.) William Shearer resigned from the ministry in 1896; Kelso was his own pastoral charge.

(6.) McLean was transferred to Southside by letter from Kelso on October 1, 1893. See roll of members of Southside Baptist Church, Glasgow, Baptist Union of Scotland Archives 17/5.

(7.) Kirk Street, Gorbals.

(8.) South Side would become Victoria Place Baptist Church. McLean had conducted Shearer's father's induction services at Kelso.

(9.) Yuille was minister of Stirling Baptist Church (1870-1913) and then became secretary of the Baptist Union of Scotland. He edited History of Baptists in Scotland (Glasgow: Baptist Union of Scotland, 1926).

(10.) See "In Memoriam" for John Maclean in Scottish Baptist Magazine (February 1923): 20-21.

(11.) Letter of E. J. Roberts to M. E. Aubrey on April 18, 1931, BUGB Council Minute Book, July 1934-June 1935, 374. Writing in 1931, he commented: "I held these views in College days and have retained them ... throughout the twenty-two years of my ministry." Ibid.

(12.) Material from John Shearer's personal memorandum notebook in the possession of his daughter, Flora Shearer, St. Andrews. I am grateful to Miss Shearer for access to this material and for her own personal reflections on her father's ministry.

(13.) Minutes, Stifling Street Baptist Church, Galashiels, September 2, 1913. When a report was given to the Vacancy Committee at Stifling, it stated that his "evening text was taken from John 3 ... and contained a strong evangelistic appeal." Minutes, Stifling Baptist Church, 1911-1918, PD154.6, May 1913. The minutes are lodged in the Stifling District Archives, Stifling.

(14.) Minutes, Stifling Baptist Church, 1911-18, for July 1, 1913.

(15.) Rodney "Gypsy" Smith was born in 1860. He was converted in 1876, and the following year he accepted an invitation from William Booth to be an evangelist with his mission, which later became the Salvation Army. For six years, from 1877 to 1882, he preached on street corners and mission halls and saw 23,000 people converted. Throughout the years, he conducted evangelistic campaigns in different parts of the world, traveling to America on thirty occasions. He died in 1947 at eighty-seven. He was one of the bestloved evangelists of his time.

(16.) Comment in memorandum notebook.

(17.) Shearer reported in the Scottish Baptist Magazine, June 1905, that 120 people had been converted. Stifling Street had thirty-seven baptisms in 1905. The revival affected other Baptist churches in Scotland with John Harper, minister of Paisley Road, Glasgow (later Harper Memorial) reporting 700 conversions and over 100 added to their membership. See Scottish Baptist Magazine, April, May, and June 1905.

(18.) George M. Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture: The Shaping of Twentieth-Century Evangelicalism: 1870-1925 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980), 157-61.

(19.) Ian S. Rennie, "Fundamentalism and the Varieties of North Atlantic Evangelicalism," Evangelicalism: Comparative Studies of Popular Protestantism in North America, the British Isles, and Beyond 1700-1990, ed. Mark A. Noll, David W. Bebbington, and George A. Rawlyk (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 342.

(20.) John Shearer, "Forward: The Call to a Great Advance," Scottish Baptist Year Book (1937): 153-57.

(21.) See Harriet A. Harris, Fundamentalism and Evangelicals (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998); David W Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s (London: Unwin Hyman, 1989), 89-91, 217-20, 275-76; Ian S. Rennie, "Fundamentalism and the Varieties of North Atlantic Evangelicalism," Evangelicalism, ed. Mark A. Noll, David W. Bebbington, and George A. Rawlyk (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 333-50; Bill J. Leonard, "The Origin and Character of Fundamentalism," Review and Expositor 79, no. 1 (Winter 1982): 5-17; David W. Bebbington, "Baptists and Fundamentalism in Inter-War Britain," in K. Robbins, ed, Protestant Evangelicalism, Studies in Church History, Subsidia 7, (Oxford: Blackwells, 1990), 297-326.

(22.) It is clear, however, that evangelicals cannot be simply classified as fundamentalists. See Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain, 275.

(23.) According to historian David O. Beale, "The editor of the Baptist periodical Watchman-Examiner coined the term Fundamentalist in 1920 to describe a group of concerned Baptists who had just met at the Delaware Avenue Baptist Church in Buffalo, New York, to discuss the problem of Modernism in the Northern Baptist Convention," David O. Beale, Southern Baptist Convention: House on the Sand (Greenville, S.C.: Bob Jones University Press, 1985), 195.

(24.) Harris, Fundamentalism, 20.

(25.) Bebbington, "Baptists and Fundamentalism," 320, 326.

(26.) For example, J. Sidlow Baxter, minister of Charlotte Baptist Chapel in Edinburgh, published one of Shearer's booklets on Modernism in the Charlotte Chapel Record for June and July 1944.

(27.) These included British evangelicals as well as Americans, although the latter contributed the majority of material. See Bebbington, "Baptists and Fundamentalism," 297.

(28.) George Marsden, Reforming Fundamentalism: Fuller Seminary and the New Evangelicalism (Grand Rapids: W. B. Eerdmans, 1987), 7.

(29.) R. Tudor Jones maintains that Fairbairn's "students All but worshipped him" and that he had an "overpowering personality" that "made a deeper impression upon the intellectual life of Congregationalism than any other teacher of his generation." Congregationalism in England 1662-1962 (London: Independent Press, 1962), 267, 309. R. W. Macan described him as "the most accomplished and profound exponent of systematic theology in the University [of Oxford] since Mozley." R. W. Macan, Religious Changes in Oxford During the Last Fifty Years, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1917), 14. See also Elaine Kaye, For the Work of Ministry: A History of Northern College and Its Predecessors (Edinburgh: T and T Clark, 1999), 114-19. A. E E Sell, "An Englishman, An Irishman and a Scotsman ..." in Scottish Journal of Theology 38 (1985): 41-83.

(30.) Kaye, For the Work of the Ministry, 115.

(31.) Jones, Congregationalism, 268-69. Sell speaks of how Fairbairn understood "Fatherhood as being of the essence of God" although he believed that God's "Fatherhood is sovereign" and would "not allow that emphasis upon God's Fatherhood" to become unduly sentimental. Sell, "An Englishman," 67. 32. Kaye, For the Work of the Ministry, 115.

(33.) Elaine Kaye, Mansfield College, Oxford: Its Origin, History and Significance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 129.

(34.) Ibid., 130.

(35.) Ibid., 95.

(36.) R. H. Coats, a relative, had studied at Glasgow, Oxford, and Leipzig prior to settling in Birmingham in 1899. In 1919, he contributed an article in the Baptist Times in which he claimed that "the first chapter of the Bible was one of the last to be written, and it gives a priestly lawyer's account of the origin of all things." Baptist Handbook, 1920, 166. He was "noted for fine culture of spirit as well as of intellect." His pastorate closed in 1921; however, he continued as a member of the congregation. See Arthur S. Langley, Birmingham Baptists: Past and Present (London, 1939), 119.

(37.) P. N. Hillyer, "Albert Ritschl," New Dictionary of Theology (Leicester, Inter Varsity Press, 1988), 595-96.

(38.) Alan P. F. Sell, Defending and Declaring the Faith (Exeter: Paternoster, 1987), 186.

(39.) Coats, "Life at Marburg," 162-63. Coats specialized in studies in dogmatic theology and the New Testament.

(40.) During the first World War, Coats spent two years with the YMCA in France.

(41.) Minutes, Annual Business Meeting, Adelaide Place Baptist Church, 1949; Minutes of Baptist Theological College of Scotland, 506. He also lectured in Old Testament studies and in pastoral theology and homiletics.

(42.) He was inducted into the office of principal by Wheeler Robinson, Oxford. Shortly after this, James Hair and A. B. Miller were appointed lecturers.

(43.) Scottish Baptist Year Book (1950), 127.

(44.) Scottish Baptist Magazine, October 1921.

(45.) Report, Baptist Theological College of Scotland (1921), 7.

(46.) Minutes, Rattray Street Baptist Church, Dundee, 1928-45, CD/CH/B/2/1/3, June 14, 1938. The Minutes are held at the Dundee City Archives.

(47.) Cited in Derek Murray, Scottish Baptist College Centenary History (Glasgow: 1994), 45.

(48.) John Shearer, The Menace of Modernism with Reply to Criticism (n.p., 1944), 4.

(49.) For fuller discussion of T. R. Glover and the controversy among Baptists that surrounded his publications, see Bebbington, "Baptists and Fundamentalists," 320; Ian Randall, Evangelical Experiences (Exeter: Paternoster, 1999), 177; Keith W. Clements, Lovers of Discord: Twentieth-Century Theological Controversies in England (London: SPCK, 1988), 107-29.

(50.) Scottish Baptist Year Book (1939), 171-72.

(51.) See John Shearer, Old Time Revivals: How the Fire of God Spread in Days Now Past and Gone (London: Private Publications, n.d.).

(52.) See "In Memoriam," Scottish Baptist Year Book (1955), 110.

(53.) Stewart Cole, The History of Fundamentalism (Hamden, Conn.: Greenwood Publishing Group, 1963), 34.

(54.) See Leonard, "The Origin and Character of Fundamentalism," 5ff. Harris stated that "the socalled five points of fundamentalism did not provide a blueprint for fundamentalists as many scholars have assumed." Fundamentalism, 25.

(55.) See John Shearer, The Baptist Confession of Faith (Stirling, n.d.); Who are the Baptists (Dundee, n.d.); Modernism: The Enemy of the Evangelical Faith (n.p, n.d.); The Evangelical Faith (Glasgow, 1946), 2nd ed.; Modernism: The Enemy of the Evangelical Church (n.p., 1946) 3rd ed. 56. Statement included in the Annual Report, Stirling Street Baptist Church, Galashiels, January 29, 1913.

(57.) See Roxburgh, Eric Roberts.

(58.) The Baptist Confession of Faith, 14.

(59.) See Forward to The Evangelical Faith, 5.

(60.) Modernism: The Enemy of the Evangelical Faith, 1st ed., 3.

(61.) Letter of May Hossack to George Hossack, October 25, 1944, 3. Holms Coats succeeded Thomas Stewart. The church closed in 1942, following the ministry of Thomas N. Tattershall, trained at Manchester, due to inner-city depopulation. John Barclay, "Edinburgh and Lothian," The Baptists in Scotland, ed. David W. Bebbington (Glasgow: Baptist Union of Scotland, 1988), 104.

(62.) Stewart became general secretary of the Baptist Union of Scotland from 1920-30 and lectured in the college from 1918-32 in church history.

(63.) Lecturer from 1932-37. He moved to Dennistoun, Glasgow in 1931 and then was appointed professor of systematic theology at McMaster University in 1937. He then moved to the Riverside Church in New York to succeed H. E. Fosdick.

(64.) Douglas Stewart was a student in the college from 1924 to 1931. He moved from Marshall Street to Hampstead.

(65.) Modernism: The Enemy of the Evangelical Faith, 1st ed., 9.

(66.) Ibid., 11.

(67.) The Evangelical Faith, 8.

(68.) Hair had been one of the first students at the college when it began in 1894 and a fellow student of Shearer, He joined the college staff in 1936 to teach philosophy of religion, Christian ethics, and comparative religion, He acted as convener of the Social Service Committee and was president of the union in 1930-31. He died November 26, 1948, aged seventy-three years.

(69.) A. B. Miller was appointed lecturer in church history and systematic theology in 1938, a former student of Rawdon College, Leeds He had settled in Hopeman in 1927. He was awarded a Ph.D. by Edinburgh University in t939 for a thesis "The Growth of the Idea of Religious Toleration in England." When he was appointed to the college, he moved to minister in the St Andrews church. He moved to Helensburgh in 1943 and in 1950 was appointed principal of the college, retiring in 1967.

(70.) Statement by Principal and Lecturers (Glasgow: Baptist Theological College of Scotland, June 1944), 3.

(71.) Cited by Ian Randall, "Graham Scroggie and Evangelical Spirituality," Scottish Bulletin of Evangelical Theology, 18, no. 1 (Spring 2000): 75.

(72.) The Evangelical Faith, 12.

(73.) Statement by Principal and Lecturers, ibid.

(74.) Menace of Modernism, 11.

(75.) Ibid.

(76.) The Evangelical Faith, 15.

(77.) Ibid.

(78.) Menace of Modernism, 12.

(79.) Baptist Confession of Faith, 6.

(80.) Evangelical Faith, 17-18.

(81.) Ibid., 19,

(82.) Statement by Principal and Lecturers, 4.

(83.) Baptist Confession of Faith, 7. Brian Stanley has recently stated that "the first World War rocked the foundations of the postmillennial confidence that societies permeated by Christian influence were not far from the kingdom of God." Brian Stanley, "The Future in the Past: Eschatological Vision in British and American Protestant Missionary History," Tyndale Bulletin, 51, no. 1 (2000): 110.

(84.) Modernism: The Enemy of the Evangelical Faith, 16.

(85.) Ibid., 17. Stanley demonstrated that several evangelicals, like E B. Meyer, stopped stressing the importance of social involvement because of the way in which the Social Gospel became linked to more liberal theological stances. Stanley, "The Future in the Past," 114.

(86.) Ibid., 18. In January 1944, Adelaide Place Baptist Church, where Shearer was a member, raised the question of open membership. The minister encouraged the church to implement an earlier decision, taken in 1938, to change the basis of church membership. The debate in the church was contentious and led to much ill-feeling. One member expressed her conviction that the open membership was "in some way connected with the errors of modernism" and suggested "the formation of a True Bible Believers' Church." John Stewart, Adelaide Place Baptist Church During World War II (Privately Printed, 1983), 8; and Kenneth B. E. Roxburgh, "Open and Closed Membership Amongst Scottish Baptists," Baptism, the New Testament, and the Church, ed. Stanley E Porter and Anthony R Cross (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999), 441.

(87.) Statement by Principal and Lecturers, 4.

(88.) Ibid.

(89.) Stanley, "The Future in the Past," 116-20.

(90.) Modernism: The Enemy of the Evangelical Faith, 20.

(91.) See Brian Stanley, The History of the Baptist Missionary Society (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 1992), 374.

(92.) Baptist Handbook, 1940, 322.

(93.) Menace of Modernism, 3rd ed., 18.

(94.) Copy of letter dated September 16, 1944, in the possession of the author. I am grateful to David Coats for access to this letter, which had been sent by Rowley to David's father, Holms Coats.

(95.) Shearer had been a member of the commission.

(96.) Thirty-five ministers left--twelve of them from the college and twenty-three non-collegiate men.

(97.) Scottish Baptist Year Book (1942) 149.

(98.) Ibid., 150. The report was referred back to the ministerial recognition committee with the council being given powers to co-opt new members on the committee.

(99.) A. B. Miller chaired a group examining "Independency," James Hair studied "The Ordinances," Holms Coats probed issues relating to "The Ministry," and Alexander Clark was asked to look at the "Ecumenical Movement." Later in the 1941 assembly, the report of the college representative referred to the "hearty spirit of co-operation which existed between the representatives and the College Committee. It was felt that the denomination and the College were becoming more united." Scottish Baptist Year Book (1942), 152-53.

(100.) Scottish Baptist Year Book (1944), 48. The motion was seconded by John Shearer. Coats commented in the Scottish Baptist Magazine that "no great harm may be done--indeed there may be advantages in having the report as a whole discussed in the churches ... provided no serious cleavage of opinion develops." Scottish Baptist Magazine, November 1943, 1. One letter to the magazine spoke of the "acrimonious discussion which took place on the Commission of Enquiry's Report." Letter of an "Old Disciple," ibid., 5.

(101.) 30,000 was initially suggested. This became the 30,000 guineas fund to keep stipends in line with inflation.

(102.) Minutes, Queen's Park Baptist Church, January 4, 1944, 136.

(103.) Minutes, Rattray Street Baptist Church, Dundee, 1928-45, GD/ch/b/2/1/3, 410.

(104.) W. Wallace Muir and Matthew Wright, the chairman and a member of the commission spoke at Bellshill. Minutes, Lanarkshire Baptist Association, January 1930 to March 1952, 183. Minutes are located in the Baptist Union of Scotland Archives.

(105.) Meetings of September 21, 1943; February 15, 1944; May 16, 1944; and September 11, 1944.

(106.) Minutes, Rattray Street Baptist Church, 416, 422.

(107.) Meeting of the Edinburgh Association on September 11, 1944. Baxter's motion was carried by seventeen votes to six, with seven abstentions. I am grateful to Christine Lumsden, secretary of the Edinburgh Association, for photocopies of the relevant minutes.

(108.) Scottish Baptist Magazine (October 1944), 1.

(109.) Coats said this was "a pity" as "discussion in a calm and reasonable temper would have given an opportunity of clearing up misunderstandings.... If as Christian men and women we cannot thrash out our differences in a spirit of goodwill and kindliness, but have to resort to violent language and threats of splitting the Union, what hope is there for the future and what becomes of our vaunted liberty of conscience?" Ibid.

(110.) Report of the Commission of Enquiry 1941-1943, 8-9.

(111.) Among the students were Tom Houston, Hugh Robinson, T. C. Anderson, John Johnston, Jim Findlay. Material from Shearer's memorandum book and personal conversation with Hugh Robinson.

(112.) Curr and Coats worshiped in Queen's Park church during this period.

(113.) Minutes, Baptist Union of Scotland, 1945, 667.

(114.) Ibid.

(115.) Ibid., 684-85.

(116.) Scottish Baptist Magazine, July 1945.

(117.) Communication from Hicks to author by e-mail. The student left college to go into business.

(118.) William Buchan speaks of Coats's attitude which was "more gracious" than that of Shearer. Letter to author dated March 2, 2000. In his "In Memoriam," Alexander Clark said that "in Council and Assembly" Coats "spoke with wisdom and restraint. In debate he stood firm for truth and liberty and showed magnanimity equalled by few." Scottish Baptist Year Book (1955), 110.

(119.) Letter to author from Matthew McLachlan dated March 3, 2000.

(120.) Buchan letter, op. cit.

(121.) May Hossack indicated that even Sidlow Baxter did not vote to disown the college.

(122.) Letter of October 25, 1944.

(123.) Scottish Baptist Year Book (1945), 52-53.

Kenneth B. E. Roxburgh is principal, the Scottish Baptist College, Glasgow, Scotland.