Why the councillor received a vote of confidence

GLASGOW Cathedral is a broad church. It is a long church as well, of

course, but in drawing attention to its breadth we are talking about its

eclectic choice of preachers during the summer vacation of its minister,

the Very Rev. Dr William Morris -- invariably taken, we can inform you,

in France. Dr Morris is not given to the narrow-mindedness of Dr Cameron

Lees, minister of the rival cathedral (St Giles) in Edinburgh earlier

this century, who took himself off to France and locked his kirk to

prevent the General Assembly taking it over for a service. (This

resulted in the Assembly passing an Act which allows them to purloin St

Giles during Assembly week whether the incumbent minister likes it or

not.)

Far from locking out those who do not share his opinions or

background, Bill Morris invited a Labour councillor to preach during his

absence. This councillor also happens to be a Church of Scotland

minister who is working in Easterhouse, having demitted his Glasgow

urban parish to devote more time to his political work.

This might have raised the occasional eyebrow, if only because Dr

Morris is alleged to be more inclined to the right-hand side of the

road, not only when driving down to France. Is he not Dean of the Chapel

Royal, head of Her Majesty's ecclesiastical household in Scotland and

therefore a quintessential establishment figure? And is not the

councillor in question one of the notorious half-dozen ''angry young

ministers'' who made a protest at the 1988 General Assembly prior to Mrs

Thatcher's sermon on the Mound, and entered their dissent before she

even spoke?

Well, if there is an appropriate place for such enmities to be

forgiven and forgotten, it is the church, and thus the Rev. Stuart

McQuarrie, described quaintly in the cathedral church notice as

''minister emeritus of Toryglen'', preached to a congregation which

included Lord MacKay of Ardbrecknish, a Government minister who was

first appointed to office under Mrs T. Mr McQuarrie began his sermon

with an allusion to a previous occasion when he had been introduced to a

congregation as a councillor. After the service as he shook hands with

the congregation, a lady said she was so glad he had come that day,

would he please see that the lights in her tenement close were fixed?

Stuart McQuarrie is convener of the general purposes committee of

Glasgow District Council which arranges hospitality, and Bill Morris is

chaplain to the council. The councillor is enthusiastic in his

admiration of the good humour which the cathedral minister brings to his

role by his famous rhyming graces prior to civic meals.

But we cannot leave this happy saga of the cathedral without paying

tribute to another of its clergy who brings a similar idiosyncratic

touch to his prayers. The Rev. David A. R. McGregor is a remarkable

nonagenarian who has served as assistant in St Giles, Canongate, Paisley

Abbey, and finally Glasgow Cathedral, first under Dr Nevile Davidson and

then Dr Morris.

Although this track record reveals that he aspires high in his

worship, his ambitions were never such and he is happy serving in an

honorary unpaid role, saying the bidding prayer with the choir and

presenting the offertory. In the latter role it is said that the state

of his hernia can be deduced by how high he raises the brass plate.

Thankfully it cannot be giving him much trouble for he is going strong

at 90, a living example that Glasgow Cathedral is as long as it is

broad.