In the Right Place.
—Councillor George Hall, Manchester, had been sent to prison for a month because he refused to give the necessary assurance to the Magistrates that he would not play bowls on the Lord’s Day in a public park. On second thoughts the Councillor gave the assurance required and was released. We have no hesitation in saying that a few others who are not only breaking God’s law but also the law of the country would be none the worse of spending some time with the Councillor, though a little longer than he did, for Sabbath-breakers are not made for martyrdom. We hear on every hand a cry for liberty. The sacred rights of the subject are to be recognised, the rights of the Creator and the claims of moral law are minor matters in the eyes of these advocates of so-called liberty. Apart altogether from the false and confused thinking that lies behind so much of this cry for liberty it would be well that its advocates should bear in mind that others have a claim to liberty as well as they. Divine law crosses the path of such so-called liberty and demands the subject to give heed to its claims. The liberty that is so much cried up to-day has more the spirit of unbridled licence than what is really deserving of the name. The Scripture has unerringly directed attention to the spirit that is actuating such men as Councillor Hall when it speaks of some as lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God.
A Foolish Speech.
—Mr. Lansbury, First Commissioner of Works, in his speech at the opening of the annual conference of the Association of Parks’ and Botanic Gardens’ Superintendents, held in the Kelvin Hall, Glasgow, at the beginning of September, said, among other things: “Afternoon on ‘Sundays’ parks and open spaces should be as free and open for decent recreation as on week-days.” Coming from one occupying his position this is not only a foolish but provocative speech. Mr. Lansbury went out of his way to advise the Churches to make the people understand our Lord’s saying: “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” We understand the sense which Mr. Lansbury gives to these words but it will be a bad day for the Churches when they follow Mr. Lansbury’s crude exegesis. The passage bears no such interpretation as the modern antagonists of the Lord’s Day put on it. God made the Sabbath for man but He retained His lordship over it. He did not hand it over to man to do what he pleased with it—to guard such an interpretation of His words the Lord Jesus says: “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.” There was a day in the history of Glasgow when it flourished “by the preaching of the Word” when a member of the Government would not dare to give expression to such views as were set forth by the First Commissioner of Works, but we have fallen on evil days, and the flood is flowing in which may yet cause sorrow to Scotland for the manner in which her people have treated the Sabbath of the Lord.
Why did Man cease to be an Ape?
—The British Association has recently been holding its meetings at Bristol and one of the weighty problems hinted at in the presidential address of Dr. H. S. Harrison, to the Anthropology section was why did man cease to be an ape. “Man did very well,” this learned scientist informed his audience with all seriousness, “before he was a man at all, and no one has given any reason why he ceased to be an ape.” In the papers read at these meetings some of the great discoveries of science have been brought before the audience but now and again the rankest nonsense under the name of learning has been solemnly declared in the hearing of men who are supposed to have more erudition than the ordinary mortal. Anthropologists of the evolutionary school must be hard pressed indeed when such senseless questions are agitating their minds. The excitement they manifest over a few bones which after learned consultations turn out to be nothing more nor less than the bones of wild beasts of the forest is pitiable in the extreme.
Augustine.
—It is 1500 years since Augustine passed away. He was recognised as one of the great master minds of the Church and exercised a tremendous influence on the great Reformers. His name as a theologian is chiefly associated with his exposition and defence of the doctrines of sovereign grace and his conflict with the views of Pelagius. His great masterpiece was the “City of God” but his best known and most popular work was his famous “Confessions,” one of the greatest religious autobiographies of the world. This is a remarkable book and gives an insight into the tremendous soul-struggle he passed through ere he came to the light. His pious mother Monica prayed unceasingly for the conversion of her brilliant and wayward son and had the happiness to know ere she passed away that his licentious life was forever at an end and that the sovereign mercy of heaven had laid hold of one who was to do a great work in the Church of Christ. While we say all this about Augustine we are not forgetful of the serious errors found in his writings even in the “Confessions.” The leaven of what was afterwards termed in the Church, Popery, had begun to show itself and Augustine’s writings are not free from it. One has always to keep this constantly before one’s mind in reading his writings. Both Luther and Calvin acknowledge their great indebtedness to Augustine’s masterly handling of the doctrines of grace.