The Guild

FIRST ANNUAL CHARTERIS LECTURE 
Friday 22 August 2003
The first in a series of annual lectures to be held in the memory of the Reverend Archibald Hamilton Charteris was held in the Gilchrist Room of the magnificent Easterbrook Hall at the Crichton University Campus, Dumfries. 
Archibald Charteris was born in Wamphray, Dumfriesshire, Scotland, in 1835. His ministry was devoted to the pastoral care of the young. Education meant a great deal to him. Some 34 years after he started his career in ministry, he was appointed Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. Through his efforts to harness the energies of the women of the church more effectively, the Church of Scotland Women's Guild was instituted.
Therefore, 116 years later, it was wholly appropriate that the current general secretary of the Guild, Alison Twaddle, was invited to give this lecture. A great admirer of Charteris' vision, Alison took as her theme his own quote about the Guild: 'Spiritual gifts and practical action'.
Following a successful event, Alison recalled:
"I had been very conscious of that the invitation to deliver the lecture was a great honour, so it was encouraging and calming for the nerves to be greeted by an audience full of friendly faces, many of them Guild members from Dumfries and Galloway and beyond. In addition to local Guild members it was wonderful to see the national convener, the vice convener, and the immediate past convener.
"The local presbytery was also well represented with several members, including the clerk and the moderator. My hosts for the visit were Helen and Bill Holland who made me most welcome in the manse at New Abbey, where Charteris himself had served in the early years of his ministry. As if that very special experience was not spine-tingling enough, I also discovered that the great great nephew of Archibald Charteris was also in the audience. It was most interesting to meet him afterwards and learn that he writes his letters sitting at the great man's desk.
"The event was organised by the Charteris Foundation which aims to create a world class centre for learning and enterprise in Dumfries and Galloway and is keen to involve as many members of the community as possible in its various opportunities for continuing education. In her welcoming remarks, the chairperson, Barbara Kelly, expressed the delight of the organisers at the response to the inaugural lecture and hoped that Archibald Charteris would have approved of the work being done at the Crichton. The campus, she reminded us, was unique in Britain in that it was shared by several institutions of higher education, thus drawing together a wide range of specialist expertise in one shared facility. 
"Archibald Charteris' love of the area of his birth, his interest in the provision of good education for all, and his recognition of the often unrecognised gifts of women seemed to be embodied in this very special event. As general secretary of the Guild he founded, it was my great privilege to deliver the lecture under the title of 'Spiritual gifts and practical action'– a phrase Charteris himself used when outlining his plans for an organisation that was to have a lasting effect on the mission of the Church and the life of the nation. 
"Following the lecture, there were several questions, the most interesting of which was perhaps 'What issues would engage Professor Charteris in today's church, were he to come back as a commissioner at the 2004 General Assembly?' There are many possible answers to that question, but the one certainty is that he would engage in the debates with passion and put all his own considerable practical energies into achieving whatever he felt was necessary for the spiritual health of the Church and the world."




Charteris Lecture


 --------------, (Chairperson), ladies and gentlemen

Thank you for that kind introduction and for this very special invitation to deliver the inaugural Charteris Memorial lecture.  This is the first time I have been called upon to deliver a lecture of this or indeed any kind.  Talks to guilds and presbyterial councils, yes, reports to committees, yes, two-minute Thoughts for the Day on radio, yes, addresses from various pulpits, yes, but an actual lecture – never before. I have therefore taken the precaution of writing the whole thing out and setting my notes carefully on the lectern – so bear with me if I turn over two pages at a time.  A little story recorded by Prof. Charteris in his journal has been a great comfort in that regard.  During his time at St Quivox in Ayrshire, he was preaching one Sunday at Monkton and (I quote) “I found my manuscript wrong side up in the Bible.  I had intended to read it … I was too nervous to turn it upside down in the face of the congregation and I resolved to go on without it.  I got through and never again read my sermons until my health broke down in Glasgow.”   I hope I shall likewise “get through”.

I wonder how surprised Professor Charteris would be to see this evening’s event.  Several aspects of it would, I think, have caused him to raise those rather impressive eyebrows, which we see on the cover of our programme.  

Firstly, there is the very fact of a lecture in his memory, almost a hundred years after his death.  He cannot have been unaware, in his lifetime, of the esteem in which he was held by the church which had elected him as Moderator, its highest office.  But he was a modest and gracious man, and I think we can safely assume that he would be pleasantly surprised to see so many gathered in his honour at the beginning of the 21st century. 

That the lecture should be held on this campus, a university site in the county of his birth, might be even more surprising to him, given that he grew up in that era when the ancient universities of Scotland seemed almost to have “aye been” and the notion of adding a Stirling, a Dundee or a Paisley to their number was, if not unthinkable, then certainly only a distant dream.

And then there is, of course, the guest lecturer, a person of the female gender.  This too would have been a surprising sight, even for the enlightened Professor Charteris.  Because for all his vision and good sense with regard to the worth of women, we would be quite wrong to regard him as some kind of proto-feminist.  He was a man of his own time – and that is precisely what makes his contribution to the development of women’s role and identity in the church so significant and pivotal.

So then, the three surprises – that we’re here at all, in his memory, that we’re here at all, at the Crichton campus; and that I, a woman, am here to address you.

I’m sure, however, that he would find these surprises more delightful than distasteful, and I say that because they draw together causes dear to his heart – 

Firstly, the public involvement in ongoing education for all types of people at all stages of their lives – something which marked the life’s work of his father, the schoolmaster at Wamphray and many others like him throughout Scotland at that time. It was not unknown for farm workers round Wamphray to enter the schoolroom for lessons, alongside the pupils who ranged in age from the five year olds learning their ABCs to the older ones learning Latin and Greek in preparation for university – and all in the one room!  When at St Quivox, working among the miners who knew nothing of the Bible, the new young minister, Mr Charteris, organised Sunday schools for the colliers and their families and was delighted at the ready response.

Secondly, there is this new access to higher education in areas of Scotland, which had for centuries sent their promising young men – and it was then mainly young men – away to centres of learning. This meant a separation from home and family far more wrenching that it is in these days of email and texting, fast roads and student rail cards.  I’m told that this area of Scotland has over the years suffered from a very high drop out rate among students who have had to leave home to study.  They seem to remain particularly close to their roots and it’s interesting to note that the only university society unconnected to his studies joined by young Archie Charteris was the Dumfries and Galloway Association. 

And thirdly, there are the opportunities open to women to play their full part in public and church life – and their acceptance as intellectual equals of men – at least by the more discerning.  It is for this that many of us here tonight have a particular interest in the legacy of Archibald Charteris, as founder of the Woman’s Guild. His early vision for the Guild, as outlined in an article in “Life & Work” in 1884 was for “a movement of all the willing women workers in a parish, old and young, rich and poor, for mutual help and united action”.  That sounds like something to be undertaken seriously, neither a pastime for frivolous ladies, nor a workscheme for feckless servants – but something which shows respect for women’s gifts and faith in their abilities.

So for the remainder of this lecture, I shall fondly imagine the paternal gaze of Prof. Charteris upon me – and it will not put me off, for he was, above all, an encourager – and he would be wishing us all well in this new undertaking, and willing me not to drop my pages …..

 I have taken as the title for my talk this evening, “Spiritual gifts and practical action”. This is a quote from Prof. Charteris writing in the early 1880s about the possibilities for women’s work within the Church.  His dawning realisation that these particular attributes lay unrecognised and unutilised among the women of the church was the driving imperative, which led eventually to the founding of the Woman’s Guild in 1887.  Although, that in itself is a story worth telling, and will necessarily form part of my theme, it’s not my intention to focus entirely on history of the Guild.  Nor will we spend the evening recounting the life of Prof. Charteris, fascinating and moving though it is.  I have been invited rather to look at the difference Prof. Charteris made to the way women can contribute to church life and the way in which their participation is viewed by the establishment of the Church.

Towards the end of last year I was approached and asked to write a chapter for a book on various aspects of Church life and witness as it currently stands – at the beginning of the 21st century.  My remit was – you guessed it – the woman’s angle on how things are going.  The title I was given was “Life beyond the old boys’ network”.  Now there’s an assumption there, right at the outset, that there is such a thing as the old boys’ network within the Church – the Church of Scotland in particular - as that was what was being addressed in the book.  Observation and a certain amount of asking around brought me to the conclusion that yes, the old boys still operate to a certain degree, but their power to manage the agenda is waning.  The women of the church are visible - and of course vocal - at every level and in every sphere.  There’s still a residual mindset around that “father knows best” and I’ll return to that later, but the times are definitely changing.

When I began to write my chapter for “Inside Verdict,” I realised that in one way, the Guild was itself an “old boy’s network” – the old boy in question being Archibald Charteris.  Before the founding of the Guild in 1887 there was, and Prof. Charteris would be well aware of this, a great amount of work being done in the service of the church by the women of the parish.  Women were active in visiting the sick, and caring for the poor and, interestingly, women were prominent in the great missionary outreach schemes to the furthest points of the Empire.  They were deemed capable of facing danger, disease and death in darkest Africa and India, but incapable of chairing a missionary committee meeting in deepest darkest Edinburgh.  Women were working  - and working hard for the Church, either in their local parish or the various missionary societies – but the work was unco-ordinated, haphazard and taken completely for granted.  What Professor Charteris realised, was that the practical energies and spiritual gifts of women could achieve far more if, to borrow a phrase of our time, they were networking effectively.  It is for the introduction of the network concept that we owe Prof. Charteris such a debt.

He was what we might call a Mr Fixit. Whenever he saw anything operating poorly or broken down, his instinct was to put it right; whenever he saw anything lacking, he tried to provide it.  Not a handwringer then, but a doer – a man not short of his own very practical energies.

The first and perhaps greatest call on his talents was the sad state of the Old Kirk he loved.  Although on good personal terms with many of the leading lights of the Free Church, and full of respect for their views, he felt that the Disruption of 1843 had been nothing short of a disaster – not just for the battered remnant of the Kirk following the famous walkout, but for the whole of the Church in Scotland.  He would certainly have rejoiced in the reunion of 1929, which he did not live to see, and who knows but that he would not have been a keen participant in today’s debate about further plans for union within the Church.  I won’t speculate as to which side he would have taken over SCIFU, only that he would have welcomed the debate.

His attitude to the task in hand, that of reviving the fortunes of the Old Kirk, was typical – action was what was wanted – but the action was to be clearly thought out, well planned and organised. Writing to a friend in the early years of his ministry he said:
“Something must be done, aye everything must be done – if the old ship is to hold together for ten years longer”
I love that reference to the old ship and the need to hold her together.  These are more the words of a carpenter than an academic – but then there is good precedent for the future of the Church being in the hands of a carpenter.

“Something must be done” is a kind of motto for the life of Archibald Charteris.  It was his reaction to the damage of the great schism of the Disruption; it was his response to the need to raise money for the financially devastated parishes through the Endowment scheme which he spearheaded; and it was his cry from the heart when he saw the poverty of the closes in Edinburgh’s Lawnmarket. “Something must be done”.

It was in Prof. Charteris’ response to the needs of the city’s poor that we see the very practical organisational skills which were to feature again in the founding of the Guild.  After fairly short ministries in St Quivox, New Abbey and The Park Church Glasgow, Dr Charteris was invited to become Professor of Biblical Criticism at Edinburgh University.  An ivory tower beckoned in the shape of the famous divinity hall and a rather good address in the New Town.  But that was not Archibald Charteris’ style.  He was as acutely aware of the lives of those around him as he had been in the schoolhouse at Wamphray or the manse in New Abbey.  What he saw in the closes of the Lawnmarket appalled him – “Something must be done”.  

What he did was to get people involved – students of divinity were put into teams and trained in the art of pastoral visiting – how to be methodical, how long to spend at each visit, what to ask and what simply to observe, so that people were approached tactfully and not stripped of their dignity because of their material poverty. Mrs Charteris organised groups of women to visit families and then to set about providing what they could in terms of household linen, food and clothing.  Records were kept so that nothing was lost sight of or needlessly duplicated. 

This remarkable outreach mission, based at the Tolbooth Church, grew to include a library, a savings bank, a clothing society, prayer meetings, Bible class, a social club providing meals and non-alcoholic drinks. Involvement of the whole people of God in the ministry of the church – an idea very current today - was the key to all this – and it worked.  For Professor Charteris it was like a green light – a signal to go for it and mobilise the whole church for the work of the Kingdom.  To harness the energies that were latent in the body of believers became his aim and an obvious place to start was with the women, who had shown themselves energetic, capable and willing to work – if only someone would tell them what to do.  

Now, I am often asked why it was that the Guild was started by a man and the simple answer is that back then, that’s the way it was.  At that time women were not expected to initiate, only to respond, and the change in how women see themselves and their role was gradual and in some ways that evolution continues still.  As an illustration of what I mean, it may be worth remembering here that it was not until 1935 that a woman presided over a meeting of the Guild’s own Central Committee, and not until 1974 did the President of the Guild become a corresponding member of the General Assembly, with the right to speak – although this privilege had first been requested in 1932.

Prof. Charteris’ motivation for founding the Guild was not just an inspired “good idea” to find the women something to do – or an academic experiment in new forms of missionary activity -some ploy to pass the long winter nights.  It did not stem from the theoretical, but was rather a response to some close observation and creative problem solving.  His observation was that the Church had a mountain to climb in terms of meeting the desperate needs of the people in every parish in the land. What he also observed was a great resource, underused because its potential was unrecognised, masked and obscured by the conventions of the day.  His blinding insight was to realise and declare that the women of the church had spiritual gifts and practical energies to offer, and that they could be a source of mutual support and united action, if properly organised.  

To post feminist ears this is where Prof. Charteris goes off message.  His paternalism – the notion that the women needed to be directed and organised - doesn’t sit well with us now.  We bridle at the carefully worked out structure over which he presided and the firm hand he kept on the tiller of his lively new craft.  But we should not judge him by the current criteria of gender equality.  At the time he was a visionary and, like all visionaries, he took flak from the establishment, of which he was undoubtedly a part, but never a prisoner.

But before the little ship of the Guild could be launched, the General Assembly had to give its blessing – and this is where Archibald Charteris knew that he would come up against it and where his meticulous attention to detail came into his own.  To have gone before the Assembly with a half baked plan for women’s work would have been fatal.  To introduce the idea one year and get approval for a national survey of women’s work and then to come back with firm proposals for a detailed structure the following year was a master stroke, the tactic of an Assembly operator par excellence.  His critics had their day of poking fun and sarcastic comment –as did the press, but the plan made sense, the vision clearly had viability, as the Lawnmarket experience had shown, and in May 1887, the Assembly said “Yes”.  A quote from the Scotsman’s coverage of the 1886 Assembly, when Prof. Charteris first put forward his idea, makes interesting reading in view of recent debate regarding the gender of the Moderator :
	Scotsman 26 May 1886: Mr JH Crawford of Abercorn supported (Prof. C’s) deliverance.  What possible reason, he asked, was there why the ladies should be relegated to the galleries? (great laughter). It seemed to him that the time would come when the women would occupy the chair which the learned  Moderator now so ably occupied- (more laughter) – and probably furnish him with a new chapter of its development in the history and dogma of the church. (laughter).  He believed that many of our social evils would be removed by the healthy influence of female opinion. (Applause)
	
We see in that brief snippet the prevailing, rather patronising attitude, but also, in the applause, the genuine appreciation of what women could actually do.  This appreciation was perhaps due in no small way, to the exceptional qualities of some of the women of the day.  Women of such spiritual gifts that their practical energy for work grew out of their study of scripture and their understanding of the faith.  Charteris himself was encouraged and inspired by such women in his own life.  A long and happy marriage to Catherine Anderson gave him a willing partner – a straightforward woman of good sense who could manage a household and no doubt sew a fine seam,  but she was educated, witty and quite unfazed by the company of learned and influential men.  Her willingness to offer an opinion in drawing room discussions was perhaps unusual in her day, but it was welcomed and appreciated by her husband, who recognised a good point or a clear insight regardless of the gender of the person who was making it. 
Perhaps in his wife he had found someone in the same mould as his mother. In Arthur Gordon’s biography of Charteris, which I have so much enjoyed reading again in preparation for this lecture, there are references to young Archie’s letters home to his mother – remember he was only 14 when he left for University. They are full of appreciation for the regular boxes of provisions she sent him – the contents, the skill of the packing – “even the oatcakes arrived unfractured” he writes.  There are also accounts later on of his sending his early sermons to his mother for comment and of his appreciation for her encouragement and gentle criticism.

One other woman deserves special mention.  During his time at New Abbey, Charteris was introduced by Major the Hon. Robert Baillie of Mellerstain and Dryburgh, a co-campaigner for the Endowment scheme, to his sister, Lady Grisell Baillie.  She was beautiful, educated, gracious and above all a woman of deep faith, dedicated to the service of others.  I was pleased to be asked recently to write her entry in the Scottish Dictionary of Biography and it was a difficult task to sum her up in a mere 300 words. Not content with daily visits to the sick, teaching in Sunday school, the holding of meetings for young women, the organising of bazaars to support foreign missions, and so forth; she also provided a water supply for the village of St Boswells at her own expense and paid for the building of a new bridge across the Tweed.  Well might Mamie Magnusson, in her history of the Guild, written for its centenary year, ask the question: “Was it Lady Grizell’s extraordinary example that inspired Charteris to conceive of a whole army of churchwomen at work?”

Certainly the impression Lady Grisell made on the young minister never left him and when he came to set out his plan for a Guild structure, he clearly had her in mind when he outlined the qualities necessary in those women who would work at the highest tier of the guild.  They were to be deaconesses, trained and admitted to specific duties by Presbyteries – bringing women into the orbit of the courts of the church in an official way for the first time.  Apart from this diaconate, modelled on those orders Charteris had observed on his visits to the continent, particularly in the reformed churches of Germany, there were to be those women workers who taught in the Sunday schools or led temperance groups or otherwise helped with parish work. And thirdly, at the broad based bottom tier of the pyramid, the Guild was to be open to all those women who engaged in the service of Christ in any way, whether organised or not, and to all those who simply wanted to learn more about their faith.

When we compare this blueprint structure to the present set up we can see that the Guild as a movement has gone through several changes in its shape and organisational structure.  But it has always allowed for that fluidity, allowing people to join the network to whatever degree their time and talents allowed.  Although Dr C thought organisation absolutely crucial, he insisted that the Guild was a kind of umbrella under which many existing groups might continue. My earliest predecessor as secretary, in the report of 1893, used the analogy of the peapod, whereby the Guild was described as the “pod” and the various groups within it in any congregation were the “peas”.  Thus the peas in the pod of Dalbeattie Church Guild in 1892 were a bible class, a choir, Sabbath school, collectors, tract distributors and a Dorcas Society; whereas at Dumfries Greyfriars the Guild included, amongst other peas, a work party, a temperance society and a mothers’ meeting.  So for all that I sometimes fear that Dr Charteris would be appalled at the comparatively anarchic state of the Guild today with our task sharing and our informality, I take comfort from the fact that he wasn’t a complete control freak and did see the benefit of flexibility.  Here is a quote from him in 1893:
“Not the least benefit of the Guild is that, by providing a means of exchanging experiences and suggestions, it has made it far easier for one parish to learn from another; but it does not follow that we must all try the same plans and adhere to the same rules: far better that there should be a great variety, as there naturally will be where many minds are trying to supply the same needs.”

Over the years since then the Guild, in its infinite variety, has indeed supplied many needs.  As I said at the outset, it isn’t the aim of this lecture to give an historical account of the Guild’s work, but perhaps I might be allowed the indulgence of a few references to remind us of  what the Guild has meant to the mission of the church and the life of the nation:
> The support for overseas mission, beginning with Kalimpong, right through to the support for AIDS project in Malawi in the 1990s
> The provision of country produce to inner cities – country markets in the town, supplying wholesome food at reasonable prices
> Support for the Deaconess hospital in Edinburgh
> The work among the fisher girls all round the coast
> The marrying of guilds together for mutual support – continued today in the Guildlink scheme – we heard at out 2002 Annual Meeting of the support offered by a city guild to its rural twin at the time of the foot and mouth outbreak, and how much that was appreciated
> The knitting for the troops in WW1
> The huts and canteens staffed in WW2 (to which I owe my existence)
> Post war reconciliation, inviting German women to visit in 1948 
> The construction of a new church for the housing scheme at Barlanark
> And in recent years, the numerous projects in support of the work of the church from the training of ministers, to the provision of hospital facilities in India.

That is just a small taste of the work of the Guild.  It has, I believe, maintained the vision of its founder and has not lost its courage in the face of a rapidly changing society.  Mrs Charteris was willing to toil up the stairs of dark and unsavoury closes and the Guild had not strayed far from that example when it raised funds, in its centenary year, to provide places of help and safety for young drug addicted prostitutes in Leith.

You might well be thinking that I have rather majored on the practical energies in this brief overview – what of the spiritual gifts – and what of the Church’s recognition of these gifts?  The awakening of the church to the spiritual gifts of its women has hardly been rude.  In our usual caring way, we have nudged the powers that be very gently from their slumbers.  Our practical energy was very early on recognised and encouraged.  We could nurse, we could teach the young, we could visit the housebound, we could go overseas as missionaries and scrub and clean with one hand, while healing and teaching with the other – just as long as we didn’t expect to marry as well!!

Our entrepreneurial skills were perhaps next to be recognised – not only could we bake a decent scone, we could be prevailed upon to bake several dozen decent scones and sell them to raise funds for the church.  This was certainly welcomed by the powers that be. “Let them bake cake”, to paraphrase Marie Antoinette.  But matters spiritual were matters spiritual and these matters were not for the likes of us.  

The road to women’s ordination, first as elders in 1963 and then as ministers of word and sacrament in 1968 was like a one in five incline, quite a long pull.  While feeling sympathetic towards the cause and some legitimate frustration on behalf of those women involved, we should not underestimate the difficulties faced by the church in trying to make room for women within its male structures.  A Mary Lusk, convinced of her vocation to the ministry, simply did not fit.  A woman called to ministry could become a deaconess – but beyond that the church had no answer.  But this is a story of persistence on the one side and of a gradually shifting balance of willingness, reluctance and some hostility on the other.  But clearly the status quo couldn’t answer to the needs of the times and change eventually came.

In her book, “Wrestling with the Church” Mary Levison, (nee Lusk), acknowledges the huge importance of the restoration of the order of deaconesses to the Church by Dr C.  She emphasises that it was a restoration and refers to the use of that word in the inscription on Dr C’s headstone at Wamphray.  For this underlines the scriptural basis for the ministerial role of women, something which Dr C was at pains to explain to the naysayers of his day. The New Testament references to Phoebe, Priscilla and others were quoted by him in support of the practical arguments he brought with regard to what might be achieved through the work of the diaconate.

This story of the struggle towards ordination for women is filled with gracious acknowledgement of support received from many men in the Church, but there were others who could not conceive of such a development and were quite incapable of putting their view in a temperate or understanding way.  One minister in the congregation where Mary was working as a deaconess was horrified to discover that she had led a service in his absence and informed her that it was “not possible” for a women to lead prayer in public.  How strange this seems today when we encourage and expect Guilds to begin their meetings with worship – and this was 1961. After what she describes as her first brush with authority in the church – it concerned a misrepresentation of her views in the press – Mary Levison writes “such misuse of power by influential men, I was to encounter again later and it was always hurtful.” 

These influential men lingered on for some time.  One particularly distasteful demonstration of their attitude was in their treatment of the Guild in the personage of Anne Hepburn at the General Assembly of 1984.  Whatever anyone may have thought of the “God our Mother” prayer at the time of the Guild’s annual meeting, it was the General Assembly which invited the Guild and the Panel on Doctrine to form a study group on the theological implications of the motherhood of God and report back.  This work was obediently undertaken, but when the time came for it to be debated, the President of the Guild was heckled in the assembly and then left to face stony silence. The Assembly resolved to depart from the matter.  While this delighted many, others agreed with the correspondent to the Scotsman who described it as “one of the most appallingly ungracious and narrow-minded displays of masculine paranoia I have ever witnessed.”

As we now know, the ordination of women as ministers of word and sacrament did come to pass and there are few who would claim that this has been anything other than an enrichment to the church. Women ministers are no longer cause for comment and they work alongside their fellow ministers in parishes and chaplaincies up and down the land with little or no fuss.  Some have built reputations as good pastors, preachers or administrators and many have served as presbytery moderators, or Board conveners.  In the administration of the Church, women, lay or ordained,  currently serve as lawyers, accountants, committee secretaries, in personnel and in media relations.  The editor of Life & Work, the depute principal clerk and the Office Manager at the Church headquarters are all posts currently held by women.  

But Spiritual gifts are not confined to those who have taken ordination vows.  It’s unlikely that even in his most visionary moments Dr Charteris would have imagined women in the ordained ministry – but he clearly recognised their spiritual gifts.  In the Guild he provided a vehicle for the exercise and development of those gifts. He wanted them to make their distinctive contribution. This is in marked contrast to an elder’s sharp cry of “seelence there!” which greeted one woman who had the temerity to speak at a public meeting in Wamphray and incidentally gave Mamie Magnusson the title for her book, “Out of Silence”.  Bringing the women out of silence has been one of the Guild’s many gifts to the church.  So many have been encouraged to take their first faltering steps in public speaking in the non-threatening atmosphere of the Guild meeting.  Many excellent women elders and ministers have begun their faith journey from that same starting point.  

No doubt the opening up of avenues previously denied to women within the Church has contributed to a decline in Guild involvement and membership, but there are other sociological factors at work in that particular equation.  The strength of the Guild lies not in numbers, but in fellowship with each other and commitment to the one “whose we are and whom we serve”.  As Dr Charteris put it in the Guild report of 1894, “What the Guild as a whole is and does depends on what each member is and does … We can serve more by what we are than by what we do.”

So is it all over?    Has that trail first blazed on our behalf by Professor Charteris led to a land of equal opportunity where everyone is gender blind? The Guild is certainly doing its part to be inclusive - I would caution against such euphoria ever so slightly.  There are still too many men in suits making too many assumptions about the role of women in the church.  I once sat at a meeting, the only woman at a meeting called by the chairman.  One man arrived late, dripping wet from the rain – trying to be welcoming and helpful I made room for him at the table and indicated that there was coffee outside in the hall– “thanks” he said, “milk and no sugar”.  Similarly, a highly qualified, but quite young member of staff at the Church Offices, newly appointed to a very senior role arrived at her first meeting of a particular committee and soon discovered that all the men in grey suits present had assumed that she was there to take the notes. 

The fact that we can laugh at these aberrations shows how far along the road we have travelled.  One day there may be a female moderator – and perhaps she will receive the Guild report at the General Assembly from a male Convener of the Guild.  Both of them will, of course, have been called to their high office on merit alone, with no thought to their gender.  

In conclusion I return to the man himself, who had that original good idea, and this quote from his own Baird lecture series in 1893.  If you think you’ve heard something like this recently, you are probably thinking of the Church Without Walls report.  But it was all said the century before last by Archibald Charteris who had a vision for how we might use our practical energies and spiritual gifts.  He said this:
“What is the church we need in these days?  It is a society of redeemed men and women, banded together to continue and extend Christ’s redeeming work upon earth, bringing sight to the blind, freedom to the captive and the Gospel of God’s love to the poor”

Thank you.