HISTORIC CHURCH

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 20, 24 January 1924, Page 9

HISTORIC CHURCH

Tiie resignation df the Rev. Thomas Tait, its minister for many years past, has_ brought before the public pnce again the future of historic old Scots Church, up on Church Hill, Sydney; where it has stood the storm and the stress just on one hundred years. It was the church originally of Dr. Dunmore Lang, the distinguished Presbyterian, who did much for Australian history. Unlike the suburban church, it seldom has the same congregation each Sun-, day. A city church, among a cluster of leading hotels, it has been the assembling place for Divine worship of visitors from all parts of the world. But Mr. Tait's resignation, and the fact that it is only one of about seven Presbyterian churches in the city area, has given rise to the problem of its future. There is a feeling that the purely city church, as distinct from the suburban church, with its parish'and its regular adherents, is losing ground, and that the Scots Church should be transformed into an assembly place as the centre in Sydney of Presbyterian activity, much as the Lyceum Hall, in Pitt street, is the common meeting-ground for 'the Methodists, whose popular and bright Sunday afternoon and evening, services there attract very large gatherings. The extension of Martin place has also raised thn question or the future of another old Presbyterian landmark in the city, St. Stephen's, in Phillip street. Mr. Tait's resignation—and he has worn worthily the mantle of such, men as Dr. Lang and Dr. Dill Macky—is not the result of any doctrinal difference between himself and the church ; it is a question merely of the impossibility of seven Presbyterian churches struggling against one another in the city area. The problem of the city church is becoming more acute as its regular adherents drift-gradually to the "suburbs.