Allocations of the Churches’ Commission.—The Commissioners have allocated to the Free Church a sum of £484,508; well nigh half a million sterling. A great deal was heard at the time of the Union about making sacrifices for what was considered such a desirable object, but we make bold to say that had the men who urged on the Union realised what it was to cost in money, they would not have acted with such a high hand. For it is to be borne in mind that the above sum, large though it be, does not represent the full monetary loss of the United Free Church. To it is to be added the £150,000 gathered for the Emergency Fund, the greater part of which is already spent, and also the sum of £150,000 for “Churches and Manses,” for which an appeal is at present being made. When one puts the sum of £50,000 offered by the United Free Church to the Free Church when the former were likely to lose their case, it must make the hard-headed business men of the United Free Church blush with shame. What with all these troubles the United Free Church has had to face a decreasing Sustentation Fund. A Church’s life it is true does not consist in these things, but they appeal to certain minds and produce a sobering effect.
Trial for Blasphemy.—Henry Boulter, who had been convicted of blasphemous libel at the Central Criminal Court, London, attended the Court on Saturday, 8th February, to give certain undertakings, which the Judge considered insufficient. After consulting his counsel the defendant submitted an affirmation in which, after expressing regret for his conduct, he promised that he would not “at any meeting in public attack Christianity or the Scriptures” in the language for which he had been found guilty, “or in any similar language, or in any language calculated to shock the feelings or outrage the belief of the public.” The Judge stated that he wanted to make it quite clear—not to the defendant, for he had given his promise, but to other people—that any future case would not be treated with this leniency. Perhaps some day we may see some of our leading theological professors and their followers arraigned before Judges of the Criminal Court, but certainly many of their statements concerning Scripture outrage the belief of the public.
Life of Dr. Aird.—Mr. Eneas MacKay, Stirling, has published recently The Life of Gustavus Aird, A.M., D.D., by Alexander Macrae. Mr. Macrae is the United Free Church minister at Bonar-Bridge, and no doubt considers himself the successor of Dr. Aird, for in these times there evidently is much virtue in succeeding a great man, judging by the excessive care that is taken to remind a forgetful public that Mr. So-and-So is the successor of the Rev. Dr. So-and-So. Mr. Macrae’s book has been described as somewhat confused, yet it gives some idea of what Dr. Aird
was, though probably, to those who knew him best, a very inadequate idea. Dr. Aird was one of the great ecclesiastical figures of the Highlands, and though his judgment of the Free Presbyterian movement was unkind and unnecessarily severe, yet there are many now in the Free Presbyterian Church who remember with pleasure the preaching of the deceased worthy. In some of the press notices of the late Rev. John Noble, Lairg, it was said he was engaged on a life of Dr. Aird.