The Church of Scotland apparently was optimistic about the "influence of the sister German Churches with their fellow-countrymen and governing authorities". We, who now live after the events, are not astonished that the General Assembly lamented, in 1937, that, "the protesting voice of the Christian Church has been so barren of results". [178] The General Assembly of the Church of Scotland was the only ecclesiastical authority, which as far as I know, spoke out against anti-Semitism year after year. The contents of the statements show that it was not an automatic affair, for the changing character of the situation was reflected in these protests. In May, 1934, the following Statement was adopted: "The General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, in light of the present world situation as concerns the Jewish race, place on record the following expression of their view and convictions. <70> Remembering the age-long sufferings of the Jewish people, their homelessness a nation which has lasted for centuries, the persecutions, injustices and hardships they have endured, from Governments, Churches and individuals; in view also of the present fresh outbreaks of anti-Semitic fanaticism manifested in many lands, the General Assembly offer to the Jewish people their heartfelt sympathy with them in their almost intolerable wrongs. The General Assembly of the Church of Scotland desire to assure the entire Jewish world that ill-treatment of the Jews on account of their race or religion is to them abhorrent; that in their judgment it is a denial of the first principles laid down by the great Founder of the Christian Faith, who places love and kindness to all as fundamental laws of His Kingdom; and that it is their firm belief that any Church which claims to be animated by the spirit of Jesus Christ and which nevertheless acts with intolerance towards members of the Jewish race, is thereby denying the elementary doctrines of the Christian Faith. The General Assembly acknowledge with gratitude to God the great contributions to human knowledge which the Jewish race has made in many realms; in a special degree they express their debt to the Jewish people for the scrupulous care with which they preserved the early documents of Holy Scripture for the ultimate benefit of all nations, which for centuries have nourished the piety of myriads who thereby have learned of the grace of Almighty God. The General Assembly would, in conclusion, again express their sense of the profound significance of the fact that the One whom they rejoice to believe in as the divine Saviour of the world came, according to the flesh, of the Jewish race, and they feel that this thought imparts to the Hebrew nation a special and peculiar position in world history, rendering it a duty on the part of all who love the Lord Jesus Christ to love also the race from which He sprang." [179]