Robert E. Speer 
 Missionary 
 Statesman 
 
 Secretary Presbyterian Board of 
 Foreign Missions Since 1891 
 
 Moderator Presbyterian 
 General Assembly 1927 
 
 Published by General Assembly’s 
 Publicity Department—518 Wither¬ 
 spoon Building, Philadelphia, Penna. 
 Walter Irving Clarke, Manager 
 
The material assembled in this booklet is designed to 
 bring together into one convenient form information concern¬ 
 ing Dr. Robert Elliott Speer, for many years secretary of the 
 Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, and Moderator of 
 the 1927 General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the 
 U. S. A. at San Francisco. 
 
 There is a large demand from all over the field for such 
 a pamphlet as this in connection with the world-wide work 
 of the church and various phases of its local programme. 
 
 Dr. Speer has always been consistently diffident concern¬ 
 ing his own personality as related to the promotion of the 
 church. He has steadfastly clung to a personal prejudice 
 against modern publicity. During my term of office as na¬ 
 tional publicity director for the Presbyterian Church, now 
 entering on the ninth year, I have respected Dr. Speer’s per¬ 
 sonal feelings. But today he belongs to the church, and the 
 church insists upon definite and detailed information con¬ 
 cerning the first layman who was ever elected Moderator of 
 the General Assembly unanimously, by acclamation, and 
 without one opposing nominee. 
 
 WALTER IRVING CLARKE. 
 
 2 
 
This likeness of Dr. Robert E. Speer was photographed 
 immediately after his election as Moderator of the Presby¬ 
 terian General Assembly in San Francisco, 1927. Thanks are 
 due to The Presbyterian Magazine for the loan of this cut, 
 which first appeared in the pages of that official medium of 
 the Presbyterian Boards. 
 
 3 
 
Dr. Speer as a Student 
 
 On page 6 of this booklet Dr. 
 Hunter refers to the current issue of 
 The Intercollegian as printing a 
 youthful portrait of Dr. Speer in con¬ 
 nection with the 50th anniversary of 
 the Student Christian Movement. We 
 asked the editor of The Intercollegian 
 to lend us that cut. Because it was in 
 much demand elsewhere, there was 
 considerable difficulty in obtaining it; 
 but, thanks to M. H. Blank of the 
 Student Department of the National 
 Council of the Young Men’s Christian 
 Associations of the U. S. A., New 
 York City, we are privileged to use 
 the cut in column 1 of this page. In¬ 
 asmuch as the cut is the property of 
 the Student Volunteer Movement, we 
 are grateful also to that organization 
 and to Jesse Wilson of its New York 
 offices. _ 
 
 Robert Elliott Speer was born in 
 Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, Septem¬ 
 ber 10, 1867, the son of Hon. Robert 
 Milton and Martha Ellen McMurtrie 
 Speer. He married Miss Emma Doll 
 Bailey of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, 
 April 20, 1893. Their children are 
 Elliott, Margaret, Eleanor (deceased), 
 
 Constance and William. Mr. Speer 
 received the degree of Doctor of Di¬ 
 vinity from the University of Edin¬ 
 burgh in 1910 and the degree of LL.D. 
 from Rutgers in 1920. He has been 
 Secretary of the Presbyterian Board 
 of Foreign Missions since 1891. His 
 home is in Englewood, New Jersey, 
 and his headquarters are at the Pres¬ 
 byterian Building, 156 Fifth avenue, 
 New York, N. Y. 
 
 The picture in column 2 of this 
 page shows Dr. Speer as he appeared 
 in his earlier days in the secretarial 
 work of the Presbyterian Board of 
 Foreign Missions. We are indebted 
 for this cut to Miss Neva Palmeter, 
 Office Secretary of the New York 
 State Christian Endeavor Union at 
 Buffalo. It is reprinted from The 
 Empire State Endeavorer for May- 
 June, 1927, in connection with the fact 
 that Dr. Speer was one of the leading 
 speakers at the State Christian En¬ 
 deavor Convention. 
 
 (From The Presbyterian Magazine, 
 July, 1927.) 
 
 Robert Elliott Speer, D.D., LL.D., 
 the Moderator of General Assembly, 
 cannot be introduced to the Presby¬ 
 terian Church. He is built into the 
 church as into many national and 
 international Christian movements. 
 
 4 
 
Minister Appraises Moderator 
 
 Dr. Stanley Armstrong Hunter of Berkeley, California, 
 was chairman of the local publicity committee for the 1927 
 General Assembly at San Francisco. His advance publicity 
 work was remarkably efficient and thorough. At the close 
 of the Assembly he delivered a sermon in St. John’s Presby¬ 
 terian Church, Berkeley, which contains an excellent bio¬ 
 graphical review of Moderator Speer. It is reproduced here¬ 
 with from the columns of The Daily Gazette of Berkeley as 
 printed therein on Monday, June 6, 1927: 
 
 “Dr. Robert E. Speer and the Re¬ 
 cent Presbyterian General Assem¬ 
 bly,” was the sermon subject of Dr. 
 Stanley Armstrong Hunter, pastor of 
 St. John’s Presbyterian Church yes¬ 
 terday morning. Dr. Hunter spoke 
 first of the adoption of the report of 
 the special commission of 1925 which 
 declared “never was there a clearer 
 or more commanding call that the 
 church advance in her organized cor¬ 
 porate work at home and on foreign 
 fields.” He then showed that in Dr. 
 Speer a leader for this advance has 
 been found. His address follows: 
 
 The election of Dr. Robert E. 
 Speer, senior secretary of the Pres¬ 
 byterian Board of Foreign Missions, 
 as Moderator on May 26, was the 
 outstanding event of the 139th Pres¬ 
 byterian General Assembly in San 
 Francisco# Dr. Speer was literally 
 drafted for the service for he pre¬ 
 viously declined to allow his name to 
 be presented for the honor. From all 
 over the country there had come re¬ 
 quests that he accept this office. 
 When the Assembly met all those 
 whose names had previously been 
 suggested withdrew and Dr. Speer 
 was nominated by a Philadelphia 
 layman, Mr. J. Willison Smith, an 
 elder in St. Paul Church, who spoke 
 appreciatively of the influence which 
 Dr. Speer had exerted upon him in 
 his early manhood. The seconding 
 speech was by Dr. Hugh K. Walker, 
 pastor of the First Presbyterian 
 Church of Los Angeles, whose friends 
 
 also had been advocating his selec¬ 
 tion as Moderator. 
 
 Dr. Speer presided over the week’s 
 sessions with great tact and ability, 
 and the addresses which he gave were 
 marked by spiritual fervor and true 
 eloquence. On several occasions he 
 revealed great versatility. When the 
 clerk of the Synod of Mexico spoke 
 to the Assembly through an inter¬ 
 preter, Dr. Speer replied to him in 
 Spanish. The next greeting was read 
 by a missionary from Korea who rep¬ 
 resented the General Assembly of 
 the church in that country. It was 
 suggested that Dr. Speer reply in 
 Korean to this. He mentioned the 
 fact that he had been present at the 
 last meeting of the General Assembly 
 of the Korean Church in which the 
 man who was appointed Moderator 
 sought in every possible way to avoid 
 the honor and was only prevailed 
 upon to accept when his brethren 
 claimed that his two years of prison 
 experience had made the choice most 
 fitting. Dr. Speer added that he had 
 been in prison for “the faith.” 
 
 When he was inducted into office 
 he declared: “I have earnestly hoped 
 and prayed that this might not be 
 done, that you might have found 
 some one else far more worthy and 
 far more capable to serve the church. 
 Of all the good friends whose names 
 have been suggested there is not one 
 who is not a dear personal friend, 
 and each could serve the church 
 better than I. More and more as the 
 
years go by, one comes to see that 
 the strength of every church lies in 
 its pastors. No church can do too 
 much to glorify and dignify the task 
 of the pastor. I had hoped that you 
 might have chosen a pastor, a leader 
 of a definite flock. He ought to be 
 an old pastor, if possible an old coun¬ 
 try pastor who had toiled in some 
 quiet place. It would be a joy to lift 
 such an one into this highest honor, 
 an accomplishment of our belated ob¬ 
 ligations. Now at the 125th anniver¬ 
 sary of our work of National Missions, 
 it would have been fitting to have 
 chosen for Moderator an old home 
 missionary pastor as we meet here on 
 the westernmost frontier of our land. 
 I feel by your choice of me that this 
 Assembly wants to bear a sure and 
 clear testimony, to assert to the whole 
 world in these days of unrest and 
 upheaval and of questioning, in clear 
 and unequivocal terms, the deathless 
 tenacity by which we intend to hold 
 to our missionary obligation and pur¬ 
 pose. We want also to show the in¬ 
 dissoluble unity of our fellowship. We 
 are not divided. We mean to find 
 the way through our difficulties in 
 loyalty to our convictions and our 
 Lord. I ask you to pray that the 
 Holy Spirit may come upon us and 
 guide us in this first hour until the 
 last. Personally I feel the deepest 
 unworthiness in standing here, but I 
 accept this honor for the Presbytery 
 of Jersey City which has never had 
 a Moderator, and for the Presbytery 
 of my boyhood.” 
 
 Boyhood Influences 
 
 Hereupon Dr. Speer paid a beau¬ 
 tiful tribute to the little Pennsylvania 
 church in “Huntington among the 
 Hills.” The pastor of that church 
 for the last twenty years, Rev. R. P. 
 Daubenspeck, who was sitting as a 
 commissioner, was one of the happiest 
 men in the assembly. He told me later 
 that although that church of 600 
 members was organized one hundred 
 and thirty-eight years ago, just a year 
 after the meeting of the first General 
 Assembly, it had been served by only 
 eight pastors. He spoke of the great 
 honor in which Dr. Speer is held in 
 that community, and referred to the 
 godly influence of Judge R. M. Speer, 
 a trustee of the church, who brought 
 
 up his children in the fear and ad¬ 
 monition of the Lord. At the closing 
 session of the Assembly as the Mod¬ 
 erator pleaded for a renewed devotion 
 to the family altar, he referred to the 
 work of his father who had his chil¬ 
 dren first of all learn the Infant 
 Catechism, then the Shorter Cate¬ 
 chism, and finally the Larger Cate¬ 
 chism. As a lad of fifteen when he 
 went off to school he knew a great 
 many of the Psalms by heart, as well 
 as the Genesis story of creation. He 
 told also the influence of a Bible text 
 that stood above the chancel of the 
 old church of his boyhood, as he 
 spoke of the need of greater reverence 
 in our modern religious life. It was— 
 “Worship the Lord in the beauty of 
 holiness.” Another text similarly 
 placed in the recess of the church 
 of his boyhood was “Holiness be- 
 cometh Thy house forever.” 
 
 All over the Assembly among the 
 five hundred ministerial and five 
 hundred lay delegates there sat many 
 men who could testify to the quick¬ 
 ening influence which Dr. Speer’s 
 address had brought them in times 
 past. On next September 10, 1927, he 
 will be sixty years old. For the last 
 forty years he has been constantly 
 speaking to great multitudes of peo¬ 
 ple. Before he was graduated from 
 Princeton in 1889, in the same class 
 with Lewis Seymour Mudge who stood 
 beside him on the platform as Stated 
 Clerk of the General Assembly, he 
 was active in intercollegiate Christian 
 work. In the current number of “The 
 Intercollegian,” which is celebrating 
 the fiftieth anniversary of the Stu¬ 
 dent Christian movement, is a youth¬ 
 ful portrait of him. Although time 
 has left the marks of gray on his 
 temples, he still speaks with youthful 
 fervor and power. Dr. Speer stands 
 well over six feet in height and has 
 kept the athletic figure of his football 
 days. In those foot hills of Pennsyl¬ 
 vania one of his boyhood diversions 
 was running through the forests and 
 beating the deer out of their coverts 
 into the runways where the hunters 
 awaited them. 
 
 Missionary Joumeyings 
 
 That rigorous training has stood 
 him in good stead, for in his mission¬ 
 ary journeys he has been called upon 
 
 6 
 
to endure hardships. In 1896 he 
 visited Persia, India, China, Korea, 
 and Japan, and in 1899 went to South 
 America. In 1915 he went to Siam as 
 well as China and the Philippines, 
 and in 1921 journeyed again through 
 India and Persia. In 1926 he visited 
 China and Japan. Practically all of 
 the out of the way mission stations 
 of the Presbyterian Board of For¬ 
 eign Missions in sixteen countries 
 have been studied at first hand. On 
 these journeys he has amazed his 
 missionary companions who are ac¬ 
 customed to the strange food and the 
 inconvenience of travel by his adap¬ 
 tability to strange conditions. On 
 many of these journeys he has walk¬ 
 ed long distances in preference to 
 other means of transportation. There 
 is in Berkeley today a retired mis¬ 
 sionary from Persia who is proud of 
 the care which he was able to ex¬ 
 tend to Dr. Speer in 1896 in his own 
 home when he nursed him through, 
 an attack of typhoid fever. The 
 dedication of his book “Missions and 
 Politics in Asia,” in gratitude was 
 “to the missionaries of Hamadan, 
 Persia.” His associates on these 
 travels have often been surprised at 
 the hard course of reading which he 
 sets himself to accomplish. He keeps 
 abreast of the best in modern litera¬ 
 ture, averaging two books a week. 
 Through the careful husbanding of 
 every moment of his time he has 
 been able to write more than twenty 
 volumes. It is characteristic of him 
 that his first book written in 1896 is 
 “The Man Christ Jesus.” Some of 
 his most popular volumes have been 
 biographical sketches of missionaries. 
 His book on Dr. Cochrane of Persia, 
 —“A Memorial of a True Life”—was 
 the first of this nature. In 1903 after 
 the Boxer uprising he wrote the 
 memorial of Horace Tracy Pitkin. In 
 1914 he published his book, “Studies 
 in Missionary Leadership,” included 
 in which is a sketch of Walter Low- 
 rie, his predecessor in the work of 
 the secretaryship of the board, and 
 five other missionary statesmen. In 
 1911 he wrote the study book, “The 
 Light of the World,” which reveals 
 
 a wide acquaintance and correspond¬ 
 ence with the leaders of the Chris¬ 
 tian church in non-Christian lands. 
 
 Outstanding Missionary Statesman 
 
 Dr. Speer’s writings have made him 
 the outstanding missionary statesman 
 in the world today. No man living 
 has more friends, in India, China and 
 Japan, and indeed in all parts of the 
 world, than he. They are the kind of 
 friends who pray for him daily. 
 
 Some occupy high administrative 
 posts; many are humble and lowly 
 people. In his book on “The Stuff 
 of Manhood,” the Merrick Lectures in 
 Ohio State University for 1917, he 
 declares: 
 
 “Every one ought to roughen life 
 by friendships that will bring into it 
 those influences which are not na¬ 
 turally in our daily associations and 
 will carry us into contact with men 
 and women who struggle harder than 
 we do. A few such friendships will 
 help to keep life from petrification 
 and to make us aware that the world 
 is under a cross, and that our hearts 
 must be as open to all its needs as 
 the heart of the Father of human 
 life is open always.” 
 
 At the recent Presbyterian General 
 Assembly he seemed able to call by 
 name nearly every commissioner who 
 rose to speak. In missionary homes 
 throughout the world his name is a 
 household word. Thousands of people' 
 in the Orient think of America in the 
 light of their knowledge of him. In 
 the closing moments of the General 
 Assembly he spoke of the influence of 
 Henry Clay Trumbull upon his own 
 life, and his book on “Friendship” he 
 declared to be the best. 
 
 Mr. Speer, as he prefers to be 
 known, is a layman. He was called 
 in 1891 to the Board of Foreign Mis¬ 
 sions before graduation from Prince¬ 
 ton Theological Seminary and has 
 never been ordained. In 1910 at the 
 time of the great world missionary 
 conference in Edinburgh, the hon¬ 
 orary degree of Doctor of Divinity 
 was conferred upon him, but it was 
 only after the repeated urging of his 
 friends, like Dr. John R. Mott, that 
 he could be prevailed upon to accept 
 this honor. I saw there in Edinburgh 
 in the sessions of that great mission- 
 
 7 
 
ary conference how he was regarded 
 by the authorities in other churches. 
 
 Mr. Speer was married on April 20, 
 1893, to Miss Emma Bailey of Harris¬ 
 burg, Pennsylvania, who was an un¬ 
 der-graduate at Bryn Mawr College. 
 For the last twenty-one years she 
 has been a member of the National 
 Board of the Young Woman’s Chris¬ 
 tian Association, and has occupied 
 the position of president of the board 
 since 1915. Their eldest son Elliott is 
 now head of the schools at North- 
 field, Mass., founded by Dwight L. 
 Moody, where Dr. Speer has so often 
 spoken at summer conferences. A 
 daughter, Margaret, is a missionary 
 in Yeng Ching University, Peking, 
 China, and another son and daughter 
 are studying in this country. 
 
 An Interdenominational Leader 
 
 Although a denominational secre¬ 
 tary, Dr. Speer has been a great 
 worker for inter-church causes. Six 
 years ago he was elected president of 
 the Federal Council of Churches of 
 Christ in America, and for four years 
 afforded excellent leadership to this 
 great organization giving himself 
 tirelessly to the prosecution of its 
 ends. During the war period he was 
 a member of the Advisory Committee 
 on Religious and Moral Activities of 
 the army and navy, one of his re¬ 
 sponsibilities being the selection and 
 preparation of literature which the 
 Young Men’s Christian Association 
 distributed widely. Favorable men¬ 
 tion is made of his services in the 
 history of the Y. M. C. A. war work. 
 Dr. Speer has been one of the lead¬ 
 ers in the Student Christian Move¬ 
 ment and has spoken at most of the 
 Student Volunteer Conventions of re¬ 
 cent years. His book, “Of One Blood,” 
 published in 1924 by the Missionary 
 Education Movement and the Coun¬ 
 cil of Women for Home Missions, was 
 used in thousands of churches. The 
 opening sentences of this book are 
 typical of Mr. Speer’s general view 
 point: 
 
 “The deepest conviction back of 
 this book is that the Son of God, 
 Jesus Christ, is the one solution of 
 the race problem as of every other 
 moral and social problem. He came 
 
 to be the Saviour of the world and 
 to establish on earth the Kingdom 
 of God. Race wrong and injustice 
 are sin, and Christ came to save man 
 from sin, the sin of each man and 
 the sin of the race. When all men, 
 or enough men, love and obey Him, 
 race misunderstanding and malad¬ 
 justment will come to an end, and all 
 peoples will walk and work together 
 in peace and unity. These pages be¬ 
 gin with this conviction and end with 
 it.” 
 
 Some of Dr. Speer’s best known 
 books are collected character sketches 
 of modern Christians, “men who have 
 been found faithful.” In a book by 
 this title he gives the life story of 
 General Armstrong and Dr. H. C. 
 Trumbull. Others described are John 
 Lawrence Thurston, Henry Dickinson 
 Smith, Samuel Mills, Neesima, James 
 Chalmers, John Leete Rogers, Harold 
 Arthur Watres, Wallace Somerville 
 Faris, Peter Carter, Arthur Tappan 
 Pierson, William Rogers Richards. 
 
 In this book he says: “These 
 sketches of real men show that the 
 same Power which worked upon life 
 and character in the first Christian 
 century is at work in the world to¬ 
 day. The idea that Christ cannot do 
 as much for us now as He used to do 
 for men, and that He is not doing as 
 much now as ever in the history of 
 the world, is a mistaken idea.” From 
 these books it is easy to find who his 
 heroes are—many a schoolboy has 
 learned to love General Gordon be¬ 
 cause of him. 
 
 When I asked one of his colleagues 
 who was in attendance at the Assem¬ 
 bly what he thought was an out¬ 
 standing characteristic of Dr. Speer, 
 he referred me to the first chapter in 
 his book, “The Stuff of Manhood.” 
 This first chapter is entitled, “Dis¬ 
 cipline and Austerity.” This is a 
 chapter with many quotable sen¬ 
 tences, but we must content ourselves 
 with this: 
 
 “All men and women who want to 
 be masters of their lives and to have 
 strength to lay beneath the work of 
 the world must ask God that such 
 discipline may be given to them. Not 
 alone is this the only kind of train- 
 
 8 
 
ing that can produce this kind of 
 character, but unless a man learns 
 control from without, he will never 
 learn self-control. Unless he passes 
 under the discipline of a wiser and 
 stronger hand at the beginning, he 
 will never come to the time of de¬ 
 liberate and moral self-discipline, 
 which alone is character. For this 
 only is character—the binding of 
 life beneath the firm sovereignty of 
 the principle that is the heart of 
 God.” 
 
 His Deep Spirituality 
 
 The abiding impression which Dr. 
 Speer leaves on all those with whom 
 he comes in contact is not so much 
 his great intellectuality, his moving 
 eloquence, his administrative and 
 executive ability, his genius for 
 friendship, as it is his deep and abid¬ 
 ing spirituality. His prayers reveal 
 a soul sensitive to God’s presence and 
 wide open to His influence. Jour¬ 
 neying across San Francisco Bay with 
 him on the ferry boat, I ventured to 
 ask him his favorite hymns. I think 
 that the five which he mentioned re¬ 
 veal a great deal of his own religious 
 life. He spoke first of Oliver Wendell 
 Holmes’: 
 
 “Lord of all being thronged afar, 
 
 Thy glory flames from sun and star; 
 Centre and soul of every sphere, 
 
 Yet to each loving heart how near!” 
 
 This is a hymn which inculcates 
 reverence. Next he referred to John 
 Ellerton’s hymn, “The day Thou 
 gavest, Lord, is Ended.” This is a 
 missionary hymn as these last three 
 verses show: 
 
 “As o’er each continent and island 
 The dawn leads on another day, 
 The voice of prayer is never silent, 
 For dies the strain of praise away. 
 
 The sun, that bids us rest, is waking 
 Our brethren ’neath the western 
 sky, 
 
 And hour by hour fresh lips are mak¬ 
 ing 
 
 Thy wondrous doings heard on 
 high. 
 
 So be it, Lord; Thy throne shall 
 never, 
 
 Like earth’s proud empires, pass 
 away; 
 
 But stand, and rule, and grow for 
 ever, 
 
 Till all Thy creatures own Thy 
 sway.” 
 
 He told me how five years ago on 
 that arduous journey through Persia 
 when his wagon was snow bound and 
 he had to wait for over a day and 
 a night in a miserable Persian khan, 
 he pieced together this hymn line by 
 line and rejoiced that he was able 
 finally to have it complete. Another 
 favorite hymn he said is “O Zion, 
 haste, thy mission high fulfilling” of 
 Mary Ann Thomson. This is one of 
 the best modern hymns of missions 
 and stewardship with a ringing ap¬ 
 peal to the church. Lastly he men¬ 
 tioned Faber’s “Faith of Our Fathers!” 
 
 His Closing Suggestions 
 
 Dr. Speer in bringing the 139th 
 Presbyterian General Assembly to a 
 close made five great suggestions to 
 his fellow commissioners. “Our first 
 great obligation,” said he, “this com¬ 
 ing year is to be in our own lives 
 loyal disciples of Jesus Christ. The 
 next is the preservation of our great 
 Presbyterian home inheritance in the 
 midst of the challenging conditions 
 of the modern world.” 
 
 He pleaded for grace at the family 
 meal, the training of the children at 
 the family altar, and the inculcating 
 of higher ideals for home life. Third 
 he pleaded for more reverence and 
 beauty in religion. “Our fathers were 
 reverent men,” said he, “they treated 
 sacred things as sacred; they had a 
 love of true beauty, which is the 
 beauty of holiness. Do not let beauty 
 and reverence get out of our homes 
 and churches.” His fourth word was 
 for better intellectual equipment with 
 which to set forth the great convic¬ 
 tions of Christian faith. “We have an 
 intellectual battle on our hands in 
 ’this modern world,” he declared. “We 
 believe not in blindness, but reason¬ 
 ably; we must know our foundations.” 
 Lastly he urged the setting of the 
 ideal and the obligation of evangelism 
 in its rightful place. 
 
This photograph, showing the new 
 Moderator, Dr. Speer, being received 
 by the retiring Moderator, Dr. Wil¬ 
 liam O. Thompson, is a close-up of a 
 portion of a group photograph repro¬ 
 duced on the opposite page. Thanks 
 are due to The Daily Gazette of 
 Berkeley, California, and to The Pres¬ 
 byterian Advance for the use of this 
 cut, in whose columns it first ap¬ 
 peared. Thanks are also due to Dr. 
 Stanley Armstrong Hunter for facili¬ 
 tating the loan of the cut. 
 
 The following material refers to the 
 cut on the opposite page: 
 
 (From the Presbyterian Magazine, 
 July, 1927.) 
 
 Moderator-elect Robert Elliott* 
 Speer, D.D., LL.D., is presented to re¬ 
 tiring Moderator Rev. William Oxley 
 Thompson, D.D., LL.D., by Elder J. 
 Willison Smith of Philadelphia Pres¬ 
 bytery. Numerous friends in the larg¬ 
 
 est of Synods, Pennsylvania, had ad¬ 
 vocated the nomination of Mr. Smith 
 for Moderator. He declined to have 
 his name presented and nominated 
 Dr. Speer. This action, together with 
 the seconding of the nomination by 
 Rev. Hugh K. Walker, D.D., who was 
 also mentioned for the office, was a 
 big factor in making the election of 
 Dr. Speer unanimous by acclamation. 
 Mr. Smith is chairman of the Budget 
 and Finance Committee of General 
 Council and was chairman of Assem¬ 
 bly’s Standing Committee on Minis¬ 
 terial Relief and Sustentation. He 
 had much to do with the inception 
 and completion of the New Service 
 Pension Plan. At home he is an elder 
 and superintendent of Sunday-school 
 in St. Paul’s Presbyterian Church, 
 Philadelphia, and President of the 
 West End Trust Company. Like Elder 
 Will H. Hays he has done much for 
 the church they love and serve. 
 
 10 
 
The new Moderator, Dr. Robert E. Speer, is here shown 
 shaking hands with the retiring Moderator, Dr. William O. 
 Thompson, after being conducted to the platform by Mr. J. 
 Willison Smith, who nominated Dr. Speer for the office. In 
 further explanation of this picture a short article is reprinted 
 on page 10 from The Presbyterian Magazine, which loaned 
 the use of this cut. 
 
 11 
 
Dr. Robert E. Speer has always been camera-shy; but 
 when he was elected Moderator of the Presbyterian General 
 Assembly, newspaper cameras bombarded him from every 
 side and as many as 80 exposures by flashlight resulted. That 
 Moderator Speer yielded gracefully and with patience to this 
 ordeal is manifest by his expression in this picture, which was 
 one of the many newspaper snapshots. We are indebted to 
 The Presbyterian Advance for the loan of this cut. 
 
 12 
 
Moderator Speer in Action 
 at General Assembly 
 
 The following facts concerning Moderator Speer’s work 
 at the Presbyterian General Assembly in San Francisco are 
 reprinted from various issues of Presbyterian General Assem¬ 
 bly Daily News, which is issued by General’s Assembly’s Pub¬ 
 licity Department under the editorship of Walter Irving 
 Clarke: 
 
 The 139th General Assembly of the 
 Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. 
 held Its first business session in the 
 Civic Auditorium Thursday afternoon, 
 May 26. 
 
 Robert Elliott Speer, D.D., LL.D., of 
 Englewood, New Jersey, senior secre¬ 
 tary of the Presbyterian Board of 
 Foreign Missions, was unanimously 
 elected Moderator without opposition. 
 
 Mr. J. Willison Smith of Philadel¬ 
 phia, President of the West End Trust 
 Company of that city, made the nomi¬ 
 nating speech. The seconding speech 
 was made by Dr. Hugh K. Walker of 
 Los Angeles. 
 
 Mr. Smith said that it was an un¬ 
 usual privilege for him to come from 
 the City of Brotherly Love to nomi¬ 
 nate for Moderator one who was 
 raised in the foothills of Pennsylvania 
 and one who did not really need a 
 nominating speech. The candidate he 
 would name had served the church 
 faithfully and well in the name of 
 Christ, and had received the call for 
 service in the path of duty before he 
 had finished his studies for the min¬ 
 istry. He had recognized the call to 
 paramount service for the Master and 
 had not only enlisted many other men 
 and women into the service of the 
 Lord but himself had been listened to 
 in countless addresses expressing his 
 consecrated and earnest devotion to 
 the Christian faith. Mr. Smith re¬ 
 ferred to his own personal experience 
 of 25 years ago when this nominee 
 
 had touched his life and awakened it 
 to a deeper interest in the cause of 
 the great Board which he represented. 
 The man whose name he wished to 
 present was an executive and admin¬ 
 istrator, a world scholar, and an am¬ 
 bassador of Jesus Christ, known, 
 esteemed and loved throughout the 
 world, for his deep Christian charac¬ 
 ter and for his fitness for any office 
 within the authority of the General 
 Assembly to bestow. He was there¬ 
 fore honored to present the name of 
 him who had for many years been a 
 secretary of the Board of Foreign 
 Missions, Dr. Robert E. Speer. 
 
 At the mention of Dr. Speer’s name, 
 the entire body of commissioners, 
 numbering nearly 1000 men, rose to 
 their feet and applauded continu¬ 
 ously. 
 
 Dr. Walker stated that he was glad 
 to follow Mr. Smith, who himself had 
 served the church as few had served 
 it in recent years. He said that Dr. 
 Speer was one of the best known and 
 best loved men as well as one of the 
 most efficient and ablest laymen in 
 the Protestant Church in America. 
 He referred to the action of the Uni¬ 
 versity of Edinburgh in granting the 
 degree of Doctor of Divinity to Robert 
 E. Speer notwithstanding the fact 
 that he was not a Reverend, the only 
 case that he knew of in history of a lay¬ 
 man being thus honored. He regarded 
 Dr. Speer, and many regarded him, 
 as the most outstanding Protestant on 
 
 13 
 
the American continent. He was a 
 missionary statesman whose name 
 was a household word in mission sta¬ 
 tions around the world. One of Dr. 
 Speer’s daughters was still serving the 
 Master in far-away war-riven China. 
 The election of Dr. Speer as Moder¬ 
 ator would honor in constructive 
 fashion the overtures which had come 
 up from the presbyteries for a cru¬ 
 sade for evangelism. Under his 
 leadership the church would be united 
 as it had not been for years and 
 would go forward to the greatest con¬ 
 structive year in its history. 
 
 Dr. Walter B. Greenway of Phila¬ 
 delphia moved that the nominations 
 be closed and that the Stated Clerk 
 be authorized to cast the ballot elect¬ 
 ing Dr. Speer by the unanimous vote 
 of the Assembly. 
 
 Dr. Lewis S. Mudge, Stated Clerk, 
 announced that the ballot was so cast. 
 
 The retiring Moderator, Dr. W. O. 
 Thompson, appointed Mr. J. Willison 
 Smith and Dr. Hugh K. Walker as a 
 committee of two to escort Dr. Speer 
 to the platform. Dr. Thompson wel¬ 
 comed Dr. Speer as his successor, as 
 a friend and beloved brother and as a 
 servant approved of God. Dr. Thomp¬ 
 son spoke of Dr. Speer as one of the 
 three or four if not the first Chris¬ 
 tian statesman in American today. He 
 considered that the church had hon¬ 
 ored itself in calling Dr. Speer to this 
 office. He handed the new Moderator 
 the official copy of the rules, which he 
 confessed that he himself had not 
 read, and which he trusted Dr. Speer 
 would have no occasion to read. He 
 handed him the gavel, which he knew 
 he would not abuse as a symbol of 
 office and authority. He knew that 
 Dr. Speer would peacefully wield the 
 gavel successfully in the best interests 
 of a united church. 
 
 Dr. Speer said that he was not in¬ 
 sensible to the great honor accorded 
 him, but that it had been his earnest 
 hope and prayer that another candi¬ 
 date would be found for the Moder- 
 atorship. He had rather hoped that 
 the Moderator would be found among 
 the working pastors of the church, a 
 leader of a definite flock. More and 
 more as the years went by he had 
 come to realize that the strength of 
 the church lay in the pastors. The 
 church could not do too much to rec¬ 
 
 ognize and to dignify and glorify the 
 pastorate, which was the highest and 
 best of all the services of the church 
 throughout the world. He felt also 
 that the Moderator ought to be an old 
 pastor, and preferably an old country 
 pastor, who had toiled through a gen¬ 
 eration or two of men and who would 
 properly be honored in being lifted 
 from a field of quietness to a place of 
 highest honor. Preferably also he 
 should be an old home missions pas¬ 
 tor, particularly at this time of the 
 125th anniversary of the National 
 Board, to bear clear and sure testi¬ 
 mony, in unequivocal terms, assuring 
 the whole world in these days of un¬ 
 rest and upheaval in foreign lands 
 that the church was clinging with 
 deathless tenacity to its world-wide 
 enterprises in the cause of Christ, and 
 that we intend to hold fast to our 
 own missionary purposes and obliga¬ 
 tions. We must as a church enable 
 the whole world to discern us as de¬ 
 voting ourselves afresh to our sacred 
 duty of extending the Christian faith 
 to all mankind. Dr. Speer urged the 
 Assembly in its proceedings to bear 
 witness to the indissoluble unity of 
 our fellowship. We must be one body 
 in a great forward movement in the 
 name of the Master. He felt like re¬ 
 ferring personally and particularly to 
 two presbyteries. He thanked the As¬ 
 sembly for his own Presbytery of Jer¬ 
 sey City, from which no Moderator 
 had ever before been chosen. And 
 then there was the dear old presby¬ 
 tery in the hills of Huntingdon, Penn¬ 
 sylvania, to which his heart went back 
 over a memory of 50 years. He felt 
 that among the faithful, devoted body 
 of consecrated men and women who 
 had gone up higher from that presby¬ 
 tery, there must today be rejoicing 
 that their old presbytery had thus 
 been signally honored. And then 
 there was another hill to which one’s 
 thoughts turned on this Ascension 
 Day, and in connection with that hill 
 he referred to the Man of Galilee, and 
 he urged that all reconsecrate them¬ 
 selves anew to bearing testimony to 
 the lifting up of Jesus Christ among 
 us so as to make him known through¬ 
 out the world and to bring all men 
 unto Him. 
 
 The Assembly extended a unani¬ 
 mous rising vote of thanks and of ap- 
 
 14 
 
preciation to the fine spirit mani¬ 
 fested by those who nominated Dr. 
 Speer. 
 
 When the General Assembly at its 
 final session Wednesday morning had 
 listened to the reading of the minutes 
 for Tuesday, some question arose as 
 to the item covering the action con¬ 
 cerning the decision of the Perma¬ 
 nent Judicial Commission in Case 1. 
 Reference was made to parliamentary 
 confusion which had attended consid¬ 
 eration of this particular case. 
 
 Moderator Speer addressed to the 
 Assembly a frank and fervent state¬ 
 ment of his own state of mind con¬ 
 cerning this matter. He said that he 
 felt that mistakes had been made on 
 all sides, freely admitted his own, and 
 asked forgiveness. He considered that 
 attempts to open up the matter anew 
 might result in leading the Assembly 
 into deeper water. He therefore earn¬ 
 estly suggested that it all be left to 
 the Lord. Dr. Speer put the whole 
 matter on a deep spiritual basis and 
 made a most profound, in fact solemn, 
 impression upon the Assembly. 
 
 The effect was the adoption of the 
 minutes, including the item about 
 Judicial Case 1, by an unanimous 
 vote. 
 
 A resolution was suggested from the 
 floor to the effect that this dis¬ 
 posal of Case 1 should in no w 7 ay be 
 construed as calling into question the 
 faith of the Assembly concerning the 
 Virgin Birth. 
 
 Moderator Speer immediately re¬ 
 sponded by quoting the Apostles’ 
 
 Creed. As he uttered the passage 
 committing the speaker to faith in 
 the Virgin Birth, all of the commis¬ 
 sioners rose to their feet, and the 
 mover of the resolution stated that 
 he accepted that as the Assembly’s 
 unanimous vote for that portion of 
 the Creed. 
 
 Many expressed the feeling that the 
 Moderator’s faith in God and in God’s 
 guidance, so deeply uttered, had car¬ 
 ried the Assembly through what 
 threatened to be a most trying ordeal. 
 
 On motion following a suggestion 
 of the Moderator the Assembly com¬ 
 mitted to the General Council the 
 task of studying carefully during the 
 year the form of procedure in the 
 consideration of judicial cases, to re¬ 
 port what changes, if any, should be 
 made, at the next General Assembly, 
 since the parliamentary tangle of the 
 day before had arisen largely because 
 of the fact that this was the first time 
 the new and difficult rules had been 
 acted under. The new rules were de¬ 
 signed originally to protect the rights 
 of minorities and dissenting opinions. 
 
 The major part of the session was 
 devoted to the Board of Foreign Mis¬ 
 sions. When that Board’s period 
 came, tne entire Assembly rose to its 
 feet as a token of appreciation and 
 affection for Robert E. Speer as sen¬ 
 ior secretary of that Board. 
 
 Dr. Speer made a most eloquent ad¬ 
 dress concerning the entire cause of 
 foreign missions, and the Assembly 
 voted that the Board be requested to 
 publish it and send copies to all min¬ 
 isters and elders. 
 
 f 
 
 15 
 
Additional copies free on 
 request — General Assembly 
 Department of Publicity 
 Walter Irving Clar\e, Editor 
 Presbyterian Church in U. S. A. 
 518 With erspoon Bui id ing 
 Philadelphia — Pennsylvania