Gaelic Religious Books.—As enquiries are from time to time made for the addresses of booksellers who sell Gaelic religious books we have pleasure in giving the following addresses:—Alexander Maclaren & Sons, 360 Argyle Street, Glasgow; M. C. Macleod, 183 Blackness Road, Dundee; John Grant, bookseller, George IV. Bridge, Edinburgh. The latter has in stock quite a number of second-hand Gaelic religious books. Catalogues may be had from the above, and these booksellers are always willing to procure books asked for if they have not them in stock.
Pruning the Scriptures.—In reference to the recent Schoolmasters’ Conference held in England, the “Christian” (London) makes the following comment:—”The Headmasters’ Conference has formulated a scheme of religious instruction for the Public Schools, with certain patent advantages over the haphazard system which has for long prevailed. At least, it envisages the need for the teacher himself to be one who professes and calls himself a Christian, and not merely a person who in perfunctory fashion gives ‘Scripture lessons’ because Scripture lessons are a formal part of his day’s work. What is less satisfactory about the headmasters’ scheme is that it seems to ‘swallow whole’ the Cambridgeshire syllabus of religious teaching for schools. This syllabus, drafted two or three years ago, was directly responsible for the “Children’s Bible” and more recent similar publications, which take the liberty of ‘editing’ the Scriptures and omitting portions not approved by the editors. We have previously spoken to the point on this matter, but again we would emphasize how urgent is the need for a consistent stand against this unauthorised pruning of God’s Word.”
A Covenanting Drama.—Under this heading the January issue of the “Record” of the United Free Church of Scotland has a brief notice of a new play by R. Mackelvie Black entitled “For Faith and Freedom,” and published by the Youth Committee of the United Free Church. “The play,” says the reviewer, “is arranged in four acts, and presents in stirring dramatic form incidents of ‘the killing times.’ It would form a suitable production for societies of young men and women, being a means of education as well as self-expression for players and audience alike.” Surely we have lost all touch with the inward springs of that life and death struggle that hardened weak men and women and made them as strong as the rugged rocks of their native land when the iron of religious oppression entered their soul when it is possible for a Committee connected with a Presbyterian Church to publish such a play, and for a religious periodical of a Presbyterian Church to praise it. The Covenanting struggle was too real and stern to be degraded by the hollow pageantry of the stage and the plaudits of a public whose attention will be more fixed on the actors than on the great principles that set Scotland free.
Refusal of D.D. by the Rev. John Newton.—On being offered the honorary degree of D.D. by Princeton
College, New Jersey, John Newton wrote:—”I am as one born out of due time. I have neither the pretention nor wish to honours of this kind. However, therefore, the University may over-rate my attainments, and thus show their respect, I must not forget myself; it would be both vain and improper were I to concur in it.”