Note.—Owing to the amount of space required for the Synod Report, etc., in last issue a number of Notes and Comments, which are given this month, were crushed out. This accounts for their belated appearance.
The Revolving Drums of Dublin: The World’s New Idol.
“The return of Derby Day,” says the Rev. Frederick E. Watson, Hon. Secretary of The Scottish National League Against Betting and Gambling, writing in the “Scots Observer” (4th June), “brings the gambling mania to its highest peak. On this, the 148th ‘renewal of the Derby stakes,’ the frenzied interest in the result of this classic race will be more acute than in any previous year. From every country in the world, with the exception of Russia, money has poured into Dublin and contributed towards the grand total of almost £2,000,000. The favoured Irish hospitals must feel proud that such world-wide interest in their work has been evoked. Unfortunately upon examination of the financial aspect of this charitable impulse, we make the discovery that out of every shilling raised ‘to help the sick, maimed and weak,’ only twopence is devoted to that avowed purpose. This simple fact demonstrates the rank hypocrisy of the Hospital Sweepstake.”
A Grave Warning.
“If only it was possible to bring to the knowledge of the average Church member,” Mr. Watson further adds in the article quoted above, “the facts contained in the Press of Great Britain each week, which demonstrate the trail of ruin and misery across the lives and homes of our fellows from one end of the land to the other, there would surge a spirit of hot rebellion against all who seek to exploit the perverted spirit of adventure in men’s hearts for commercial ends. Gambling in its myriad forms is the enemy of society and religion, against which men of goodwill must combine if the nation is to be saved from dire disaster. A nation of gamblers will never have the nerve and the vision to bring the country through the unparalleled economic and industrial depression through which we are passing and which still lies ahead. If the revolving drums of Dublin make men see the abyss yawning at their feet, the drums will not have revolved in vain.”
The Rev. Dr. Warr, St. Giles’ Cathedral, on Sabbath Observance.
At a meeting in St. Andrew’s Church, Edinburgh, in moving a resolution calling upon the General Assemblies “to give the question of the Lord’s Day Observance that place in their deliberations which its importance merits” delivered a speech which in general was of the milk and watery type so characteristic of leading ecclesiastics of our time. The main defect of the speech, however, was not so much its weakness as its sentiments of manifest incongruity with the purpose for which the meeting had been called. If we are not mistaken Dr. Warr belongs to the school of Dr. Hessey, Dr. Norman Macleod of the Barony, Glasgow, and many others, who have done a vast amount of mischief both in England and Scotland in cutting adrift from the strong anchorage of the binding obligation of the Fourth Commandment. Dr. Warr’s speech was punctuated by considerable interruptions. Dr. Renwick, the Moderator-Designate of the Free Church, seconded the resolution. While he cannot be held responsible for Dr. Warr’s speech it is regrettable that he uttered no word of protest against the views of Dr. Warr—at least the press reports give no indication that he did.
William Robertson Smith.
In these days when the whitewashing of heretics has become a profession it is not to be surprised that Dr. Robertson Smith should be among those whose memory should be resurrected by his admirers. Professor P. Carnegie Simpson in a recent article in the “British Weekly” found himself in the difficult position of trying to defend Dr. Robertson Smith and Principal Rainy whose action was never forgiven by Smith. No one can read Smith’s life by men who fully sympathised with him and the reports of the General Assembly can help feeling here was a man who with high disdain scorned the men who opposed him and taking shelter behind his learning treated them with ill concealed contempt. Dr. Simpson’s article called forth a considerable correspondence. One of the writers quoted a passage from the life of Sir William Robertson Nicoll (p. 41) in which he refers to an interview he had with Wellhausen which we reproduce here:— “I asked him what he thought of the testimony of Christ. He replied that no doubt Christ was mistaken about the Old Testament, but that, as He did not understand about the earth and the sun, so He did not about the Bible, and it mattered little. I said that the natural effect of such views was to shake the place of the Bible in people’s minds, to which he replied that he was pressed by this difficulty—that he did not see any way out of it . . . . Smith, he said, was not a scholar, but clever at presenting other men’s theories. Scholars were often stupid, but Smith was not stupid at all.” It was Wellhausen’s teaching that ruined Smith and notwithstanding Wellhausen’s daring irreverence in his reference to our Lord thousands of Scottish and English scholars sat at his feet as one of the great teachers of his age.
Dedicating a Bell.
The Scottish press gave considerable space to the report of the pilgrimage to Iona for the purpose of dedicating a bell in the Cathedral by the Moderator of the Church of Scotland, Dr. John A. Graham. This is part of the dedication prayer offered up by the Moderator as reported in the “Oban Times”:—”Accept we beseech Thee, at our hands this Bell, which has been cast and gifted for Thy glory and is now dedicated with adoring gratitude for Thy worship and to Thy holy service. We pray that it may be richly blessed in its ministry of calling the dwellers on this Isle beloved and all who sojourn with them to communion with Thee and each other within these walls.” How the bell is to be for God’s worship and His holy service passes our comprehension. We had hoped that the days of dedicating buildings, bells, etc., had passed forever from Presbyterian Scotland but the very people who scorn to stand by the scriptural doctrines of their forefathers are the people who delight in Romish and Episcopalian practices which with all the trumpery of Rome had been cast out at the Reformation.
Court of Session Decision re Opening of Cinemas on the Sabbath.
Lord Maekay has at length given his decision in the action raised by certain members of the Lord’s Day Observance Association of Scotland, who asked that the Magistrates of Edinburgh should be interdicted from granting licences for the opening of picture houses for public entertainment on the Lord’s Day. His Lordship dismissed the action as incompetent and irrelevant. On the question of competency and relevancy he said the title to compel the licensing authorities to forbid in their permits any such performances was to attempt the impossible. The proper method of getting at what was desired was to attack the actual committers of the offences or profanations of the Sabbath. He further gave as his opinion that he had been unable, even under the general category of profanation of the Sabbath, to find anything which did definitely prohibit in the law of Scotland the presentation of a moving pictorial representation to a body of the public collected within an enclosed area and causing no disturbance without its walls. This interpretation of the Scottish statutes on Sabbath observance gives a tremendous advantage to those exhibitors who wish to open Cinemas on the Lord’s Day and is a very serious matter for all who wish to see the Sabbath better observed in this country. It is gratifying to know, however, that Lord Mackay rejected the plea that the Scottish Acts on Sabbath observance were no longer binding owing to desuetude.
The Spanish Republic and the Church of Rome.
It would appear that the new Government in Spain is anything but favourable to the Church of Rome. The latest, at the time of writing this note, is the expulsion of Cardinal Segura on his return from the Vatican to Spain. The Cardinal informed the Special Correspondent of the “Daily Mail” that he had gone to Rome by an arrangement come to at a meeting of the Spanish bishops “to report on the new régime and its anti-Catholic tendencies.” When questioned as to the position of the R.C. Church in Spain the Cardinal replied that “all the decrees dealing with religion which had been issued by the Provisional Government were directed against the Catholic Church as established in Spain.” He further expressed a fear that “the new Cortes (Parliament) when elected will be still more anti-religious and that the laws it will make will tend towards the destruction of the Catholic Church in Spain.” The Pope has instructed the Papal Nuncio to Spain, to protest to the Spanish Government against the expulsion of the Cardinal. At present the matter rests there and what the future developments will be is not within our knowledge. The situation would be more encouraging to us as Protestants if we were assured that the present movement was anti-papal and not anti-religious as we have good evidence for believing it is.
Earthquake and Storms.
The country has had a reminder in the recent earthquake which was felt as far north as the Orkneys to the far south of the instability of the solid earth. As a land we have been mercifully immune from the terrifying experiences encountered in other countries but slight though the shocks were they were sufficient to create the strangest sensations in those which experienced them. Within ten days or so the country was visited by a more than ordinary severe rain storm. Two “Sunday” excursion trains, one from Aberdeen and the other from Oban, had very narrow escapes owing to the washing away of the railway bed. Some lives were lost in efforts to save stock. There was a day in Scotland when such visitations would be taken seriously to heart as a warning from heaven. These days are past but the wise will consider these things and lay them to heart. When God was to punish Ariel, the city where David dwelt, it was announced: “Thou shalt be visited of the Lord of hosts with thunder, and with earthquake, and great noise, with storm and tempest, and the flame of devouring fire” (Isaiah xxix. 6).
Folk-Plays for Assembly Members.
The following notice with the foregoing cross-heading appeared in the Church of Scotland Record—”Life and Work”—in its May issue: “Three Folk-Plays in the Scots Vernacular, by Margaret Robertson, Mus.B., Edin., incorporating well-known Scots songs, will be performed in St. Giles’ Hall, Victoria Terrace (by permission of the kirk-session of St. Giles’ Cathedral), on Tuesday, 19th May, at 8 o’clock. The plays are After Culloden, The Auld Cloak, and The Crown o’ the Causey.” Comment is needless.
Extraordinary Statement by a Law Officer of the Crown.
In the recent discussions in Committee on the Sunday Performances (Regulation) Bill (Sabbath Desecration Bill ought to be its name) Sir William Jowitt, Attorney-General, is reported in the press as having said: “I admit that until this recent agitation I winked at what I regarded as a breach of the law, because I looked upon the Sunday Observance Act as largely out of accord with public opinion. One must administer the law with a certain amount of discretion, and I thought I was quite justified in so doing, but if this Bill passes then obviously it will be our duty to see that the law is enforced.” We have always prided ourselves as a people on the administration of English law but when an officer of the Crown, occupying Sir William’s important place coolly informs us that he winked at what he regarded as a breach of the law because he looked upon the Sunday Observance Act as largely out of accord with public opinion one begins to wonder where we really stand. Is Sir William laying down the principle that because a law is not in accord with public opinion therefore it is to be ignored? If so it is about high time he vacated his position; for such gross dereliction of duty on the part of a responsible law officer of the Crown is an incentive to that lawlessness which is a feature of the age. Sir William must know that the Bill before Parliament is not in accord with popular opinion. It has the support of only a section—and that a rather noisy section—of the public. A great many are opposed to it because it goes too far and others because it does not go far enough. If the Bill becomes law is Sir William, therefore, to wink at it? While the General Strike was on would Sir William have winked at the legislation that checked the efforts of reckless agitators simply because it was not in accord with public opinion. May the British nation be delivered from such law officers!