Christian Way Campaign.—This is another attempt to evangelize Scotland. We will not take upon ourselves to say at this date that it is as likely to be a failure as its predecessors engineered by men who seemed to forget that it required a great deal more than committee meetings, etc., to revive and quicken the dead masses which are outwith the churches and alas! within them. The religious standing of some of the speakers bodes ill for spiritual success. In connection with the campaign in the Presbytery of Stirling and Dunblane, Dr. Hutchison Cockburn while hesitating to assess results does not seem to be very hopeful—at least so his words would indicate. Scotland is in need of a revival and all true believers would rejoice to see it but the signs that accompanied the heaven-sent revivals of other days are not showing themselves as yet in our land.
Menace of Roman Catholic Propaganda in Britain.—The World’s Evangelical Alliance (19 Russell Square, London, W.C.1) has issued a useful tract under the title, The Menace of the Roman Catholic Propaganda in Great Britain at the price of 3d. In one of the paragraphs it says: “If the British public knew exactly where we stand at the present time on this question of Roman Catholic propaganda in England and the British Empire, there would be an uprising of the people, for it is finding its way into every aspect of public life; in the Press in matters of State interests, even of Succession to the Throne of England, in Society, Art, Literature, and, if last not least, Education, as the struggle over the Education Bill witnesses.” In regard to the latter matter the Romanist hierarchy and press are working for all they are worth to get as much financial aid from the British Exchequer as they can. The Ancient Order of the Hibernians, according to the Universe sent a questionnaire to Scottish M.P.s asking them if they would favour financial equality for Roman Catholics in England and Wales in the proposed new English Education Bill, such as they enjoy in Scotland. This is an adroit move and already Mr. James Maxton, M.P., has walked into the Spider’s parlour probably not alone.
The Vatican Under Fire.—Mr. Sydney Dark editor of the Church Times in his recent book, I Sit, I think, and I wonder has charged the Vatican by a sweeping indictment. We have no sympathy with the religious and ecclesiastical opinions of Mr. Dark nor those set forth in the Church Times but one thing we can say without hesitation his opinions are far from being ultra-Puritanic. After expressing the opinion that Rome is Fascism’s most powerful ally and that the Roman Church through the Foreign Office and the Press has an influence out of all proportion to its numbers he goes on to say:—”Rome has always been the opponent of Liberalism. It has always suspected democracy. With the financiers, it has lived, since the Russian revolution in terror of Communism, and this terror has dictated the international policy of the Vatican. This fear explains the backing of Dollfuss, who destroyed the Austrian Socialist Party, the Lateran Treaty, that made Fascism respectable, the combined action with Hitler and Mussolini in support of Franco, and the partial benevolence to Hitler, despite the anti-Christian antics of Rosenberg, because the Fuehrer claimed to be the European champion against the Bolsheviks. From my point of view, the Vatican has been partly responsible for the war, and I am sorrowfully convinced that, in the post-war struggle between Fascism and Socialism, which for reasons that I shall explain I feel is certain, the Vatican will be on the side of Fascism, with the enthusiastic approval of Roman Catholics in this country. This is clearly indicated in the Roman Catholic Press, and in the writings of the gifted English Roman Catholic apologists.”
Moving with the Times.—What is described as somewhat of an innovation by the Scottish correspondent of the British Weekly is the appointment of Miss Jean Thomson, B.D., to assist Rev. R. Leonard Small of the West High Church, Kilmarnock. She is to hold office both as ministerial assistant and church sister. This is the first appointment of a woman as a ministerial assistant, as far as we know in the Church of Scotland, but in all likelihood it is a straw showing the drift of the mind of some ministers in that Church. We shall await with interest the reaction of this appointment on the Presbytery.
Strange Happenings in John Knox’s City.—The Lord Provost’s Committee of Edinburgh Town Council accepted an invitation to attend officially Pontifical High Mass for members of His Majesty’s and Allied Forces at the Roman Catholic Cathedral on Sabbath, 31st October. The Scotsman describes the service as a unique event. We should think it is for not only has Rome hoodwinked the Lord Provost of Edinburgh and his charitable fellow Councillors but we are told that 1,000 personnel of H.M. Forces including Home Guard and uniformed representatives of the Merchant Navy and the Fighting services of seven Allied nations were present at the High Mass in the Roman Catholic Cathedral in Broughton Street. The Romanists propagandists are past masters in getting a place in the lime light and on this occasion they spread their net widely and had a very successful haul of so-called broad-minded but spineless Protestants. When the matter came up at the Town Council the Lord Provost made one of those milk-and-water defences, which showed the weakness of his case. The Lord Provost’s motion asking for approval of his Committee’s recommendation was carried by 27 to 5. Poor Edinburgh! A lady Councillor Ahab-like condemned stirring up religious feeling in the middle of the War. One would like to know something of Mrs. Bowie’s and Councillor Airlie’s religious affinities. Oh! for one blast of Knox’s trumpet voice!
The Scottish Baptists in Deep Waters.—At their annual Assembly in Glasgow the Baptists in Scotland were confronted with not a few disconcerting questions. Independency in church government is evidently being found not to be so effective as its advocates sometimes tell us it is. Finance also causes anxiety. Then the passing of so many of their ministers into that wide field of theological and ecclesiastical liberty has caused serious questionings in the mind of the Assembly as to how this leakage may be stopped. The birds of passage, no doubt, are infected with the modern desire to move in other and richer fields. So serious is the matter regarded that a Commission of Inquiry has been appointed by the Baptist Union to consider what can be done to stay this leakage into the modern ecclesiastical Cave of Adullam where the discontented, etc., find a haven of rest. One member charged their theological college with Modernism but this was indignantly denied by some of the members.
A Voice from Cuba.—A correspondent (Niel Hone) from Cuba in a letter to the British Weekly after trouncing the editor for being puzzled at the attitude of the Vatican goes on to say: “Why should you be puzzled? The whole range of history shows that the Vatican is a political entity, with nothing of it a religious moral force. The Vatican works for the Vatican, irrespective of the moral or religious affinities of its allies. . . . The Roman Catholic Church demands utter submission to itself, yet it has in the past—and would to-day were it beneficial to its power— allied itself with heretics in its temporal capacity irrespective of its religious demands. The Roman Catholic Church is a political entity first, last and foremost. Everything else is subordinated to its greed for power, and I regard the menace of this Church as a far greater one than the Axis and Japan combined. The Vatican would make a deal with the devil himself were it possible in order that she or its powers be maintained or increased.”
The Critics Challenged.—The Critics in question are not the kind that are as numerous as locusts in the land but the Higher Critics, whose destructive work in eating up every green thing, are as ruinous and destructive as the hordes of locusts in the insect-world. These learned scholars who pride themselves in their attainments and whose respect to conservative scholarship is on inverse ration to their own have often been challenged but they go serenely on their way deaf to what has been said and blind to the trail of destruction they have caused. One of the latest attacks on the higher critical citadel comes from the distinguished American scholar, Dr. Allis, who, at one time held a chair in Princeton Seminary. Dr. Allis is well known in orthodox circles for his various articles on various phases of Old Testament scholarship and in his recently published book, The Five Books of Moses (Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 525 Locust Street, Philadelphia, Pa., U.S.A.; price 15s), he combats the higher critical positions. Here is his final conclusion:—”If we do not believe Moses, we will not believe Christ. Why is this? It is simply because the redemptive supernaturalism of the Old Testament is preparatory to it and has its fulfilment in the Messiah of whom Moses spoke. Deny this redemptive supernaturalism in the Pentateuch and, logically there is no place for the supernatural Christ of the New Testament.” This is the Rock on which the Higher Criticism must inevitably crash and be broken to pieces.
The Waldenses.—In the tremendous upheavals caused by the War strange things happen. Who would have thought that the Waldenses who kept the truth so pure of old would appear on the scene? Yet such is the case. In the British Weekly (14th October) an Observer Officer in the Army has an interesting article on “The Waldensians in Italy and Sicily.” At the outset of his article Observer refers to the Sicilian paper, Corriere di Sicilia, edited by Dr. Theodoro Balma, who is pastor of the Presbyterian Waldensian Church in Catania. Needless to say Dr. Balma and his paper are anti-Fascist and Anti-Romanist to the core. The Waldensian Synod at its annual meetings continued sending loyal messages to the King of Italy but ignored Mussolini. The Waldensians have 80 pastors in Italy and Sicily—three of the older ministers are Fascists—three too many. The story of the Waldensian Church is one of the romances of Church History and perhaps no book gives such an interesting account of this remarkable people as Dr. Wylie’s History of the Waldenses. They received their name from Peter Waldo who organised them as far back as 1218. They were cruelly persecuted by Church and State and it is in connection with one of the later persecutions the strong hand of Cromwell intervened and Milton wrote his immortal sonnet beginning:—
“Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints
Whose bones lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold.”
The Waldenses accepted Calvin’s teaching but how they stand related to it now we cannot say. They are Presbyterians in church government. There are some 60,000 Waldensians in Italy of whom 20,000 still live in the Piedmontese valleys. In Sicily there are 10,000. They formed many colonies in U.S.A., Argentina, Uruguay. In U.S.A. there are 350,000 Protestant Italians.
Dr. Norman Maclean on Spiritualism.—Dr. Maclean, who, a few weeks ago was shedding copious tears over Macleod Campbell of Row (pronounced Bhu, Gaelic Rudha) who was deposed by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland (Moderates and Evangelicals) for anti-Confessional teaching in 1831, is out on a new tack. At the end of September he presided over a meeting in the Usher Hall when there were about 2,400 present. A number of Edinburgh ministers, says the report, were on the platform. Here is a paragraph from the report of Dr. Maclean’s speech:—”Spiritualism was the first step to the reception of the divine. Spiritualism was an ally of Christianity. He would say to anyone whose son was lying in Africa, or in Sicily or Flanders—nothing had happened to him except deliverance from the body of sense. They had more life than ever. They were in the keeping of the Eternal Father. So for him there was no sting in death; the grave had lost its victory. It was but crossing, with a bated breath and white set face, a little strip of sea to find the loved ones waiting on the shore more beautiful, more precious than ever before.” We presume Dr. Maclean is correctly reported and if so no criticism of ours is required; the paragraph speaks for itself. Still we cannot get away from the Master’s teaching—”Except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Dr. Maclean, though retired, is still a minister of the Church of Scotland. Spiritualism or Spiritism flourishes in such times as these but what a barren comfort it brings to those who are mourning their dead.