REV. W. LINDSAY STEWART

On the advice of Dr. Gossip the congregation called the Rev. W. Lindsay Stewart, who was inducted on 24th February, 1939. Mr. Stewart was qualified not only as a minister but also as a psychologist. Great crowds used to come to the evening services when Mr. Stewart related the insights of the psychologists to the Christian religion, and in the first year of his ministry the membership rose from 385 to 515. The organisations also prospered. In April 1940 the 48th Aberdeen Company of Girl Guides was formed in connection with the church, though this did not replace the Girls Guildry already existing. (Both these organisations ceased about 1960.)

In November, 1940 Mr. Stewart married one of the members of the church, Miss Margaret Paul Hood, thus becoming the only minister so far to have married while in the charge. A daughter was born in October, 1941 - two of Dr. Forgan's five girls were born during his Gilcomston ministry.

The outbreak of the Second World War disrupted the activities of the church. Since the A.R.P. had taken over the halls, it was not possible for any of the organisations to carry on their programmes. However, since it was decided to obtain blackout material, it was possible to make full use of the church for both normal services.

In April 1942 Mr. Stewart applied for a commission as a Chaplain in the Royal Air Force. After discussion it was decided that he should resign if he obtained this position. In October it was decided that he be asked to stay on in any event. The Session Clerk, James Fraser, resigned at this time. Then at a later meeting that month this latter decision was confirmed and it was agreed to request a temporary union with West St. Andrews Church. For some time this arrangement worked with the congregations meeting alternately in each church. Then in December, 1943 Mr. Stewart finally resigned.

The following appreciation of Mr. Stewart by Mr. Still was printed in the Record for June, 1965 subsequent to Mr. Stewart's death in May of that year.

"We deeply regret to record the death of a former minister of our congregation, the Rev. W. Lindsay Stewart, in Canada.

Mr. Stewart who belonged to the South of Scotland was trained in psychiatry as well as in divinity, and his coming to Gilcomston and Aberdeen created a great deal of interest in the community, and many came to hear him preaching on the relation between the Christian faith, the science of psychology and the healing art of psychiatry. Mr. Stewart drew around him a good many who were in need of such ministrations, and practised with enthusiasm and success. He was a man of great sympathy, being not of over robust constitution himself; he had a gift for friendship, which he exercised in interesting many in Christian things far outwith the church.

He commenced his ministry in Gilcomston in the first year of the second Great War and soon was uneasy of conscience about remaining in a pastorate especially since he was specially qualified to undertake certain aspects of a padre's work in wartime. At last he decided, and resigned the charge, to serve in the R.A.F. where he rendered special service. In 1947 he became Chaplain and Counsellor to the University of British Columbia, Canada, but the next year returned to Scotland to become Minister of St. George's Tron Church, Glasgow. In 1954 he became a Minister of the United Presbyterian Church in the United States and was seconded to work as the Chaplain and Clinical Director of The Salvation Army Men's social Service Centre, San Francisco. In 1962 he became Executive Director of the Edmonton Day Centre for homeless unemployed men, and last year Mr. Stewart was readmitted to the United Church of Canada.

We honour him for the depths of his compassion for men in their human plight, and for his life of tireless service to relieve them, and to restore them to human decency and dignity. His last unfinished sermon, which was to have been preached on the Sunday following his death, was a heart cry against the devilishness of racial bitterness, and the hideous things men, black and white, do to each other in the furies of their hatred and bitterness."

In the period from Mr. Stewart's resignation in December 1943 to June 1945 when Mr. Still was inducted, there were attempts to suppress the charge of Gilcomston South and to merge it with another - West St. Andrews being the obvious choice. Both Mr. Leith and the then Session Clerk, Mr. S. Troup, were to the fore in the discussions. One remarkable point emerges from the minutes of these meetings. Less than seventy members attended the deliberations. Only fifty-eight out of a roll of about six hundred were at the meeting which finally decided to carry on. Twenty-six voted for continuing, eighteen for union and fourteen for dissolving the congregation. Even allowing for the War, the fact that only 5% of the congregation voted to carry on, is telling. Concomitant with that, the Session minutes contain lists of those asking for disjunction certificates. To meet this crisis in part, the joint arrangements with West St. Andrews were ended in May 1944, since it was felt that the church was breaking up and had to meet in its own premises if it were to preserve its identity and integrity. The Rev. G.M. Denny Grieve, then an assistant minister, came and took the services.