New Year Greetings to our Readers.—By the time this issue is in the hand of most of our readers another year will have almost run its course. In a short note like this we have no intention of reviewing the important events of the past year—a year which saw a definite turn for the better for the Allied cause. Still, the War goes on in increasing intensity and if we are to believe the words of our leaders the worst is yet to come. The terrible judgments of God poured forth on the nations seem to have no effect but God’s people are laying these things to heart and praying that in wrath He would remember mercy. Our thoughts go out especially to those who are bearing the brunt of battle in the Navy, Army and Air Force. Let them be assured that they are being continually remembered by us at a throne of grace. We would also remember at this season all doctors and nurses with a prayer that they may be blessed in their noble work and also all others men and women called up in the service of their country, especially those engaged in dangerous work in the factories at home. May those of our readers whose thoughts are turned to the vacant places in their homes be enabled to lift their eyes to Him who alone can give true comfort. To all bereaved ones and to all who are in constant anxiety dreading the news that may come to them at any moment we extend our heartfelt sympathy and commend them to the grace of that God who is a present help in the time of need. May it be their happy experience to know that there is a High Priest who can be touched with a feeling of their infirmities.
Prohibition of Opium in British Protected Areas in the Far East.—In a letter to the Times (London) a writer expresses his pleasure that the British Government have decided to adopt the policy of total prohibition of opium smoking in the British protected areas in the Far East which are at present in occupation by the Japanese and that the Government monopolies for the sale of opium prepared for smoking will not be re-established on the recovery of these territories. Is it true that since the Opium War in 1839, one of the disgraceful chapters in Britain’s foreign policy, that there has been a gradual move to the British Governments attitude to destruction of opium. By the recent decision the British Government brings itself into line with the U.S.A. The present Chinese Government have waged a war against the cultivation and use of opium and this will make it easier to put down the introduction of opium into those territories to which the new decision applies.
A Strange Statement.—In a speech delivered by the Rev. A. C. Gregg, B.D., minister of the Greenock Reformed Presbyterian Church and Editor of the Bulwark he is reported as saying among other things: “The Renaissance had introduced Greek literature to central and Western Europe, and it should be remembered that whatever was true and beautiful in Greek poetry and philosophy had been taught the Greeks by the Holy Spirit” (Bulwark, November, December). Would Mr. Gregg go the length of saying that whatever is beautiful and true in the poetry of Byron, Shelley, Burns, etc. or say in the writings of Darwin, Spencer, Huxley, etc. was taught them by the Holy Ghost? And would he say that whatever is beautiful and true in the paintings of some of our famous artists whose lives were very far from what they should have been was taught them by the Holy Ghost? To apply what is said in Ex. xxxi. 2 concerning Bezaleel and Aholiab, who were specially equipped by the Lord for the workmanship of the Tabernacle to the Greek sculptors and poets is very far from a “good and necessary consequence.”
Criticism of the B.B.C.—Public Opinion makes the following comments on some of the B.B.C. programmes:—
“Speaking at Cambridge on ‘Youth and the Future,’ Lady Snowden said:—’I do not believe that the taste of the people of this country is as low as some of the things on the B.B.C. suggest. In the six years that I was a governor it was absolutely impossible for the filthy stuff now broadcast to get on the air.’ To this remark, the B.B.C. replied:—’There is no foundation for Lady Snowden’s statement. The standard of taste of B.B.C. broadcasts has improved, and will continue to do so.’ The public will be grateful to Lady Snowden for her outspoken protest, for she speaks for many listeners who resent the sub-standard morals and sub-standard speech of the B.B.C., which by its programmes misrepresents the quality of British life. Not only are listeners precluded from certain types of programmes as a means of avoiding what Lady Snowden correctly described as ‘filthy stuff’; the objectionable matter intrudes at times in otherwise acceptable items. Interviewed by a representative of the Yorkshire Post, Lady Snowden, a former Governor of the B.B.C., elaborated her criticism of the standards of taste in certain types of programme. ‘My views,’ she said, ‘is that the low tone of some parts of these programmes menaces the standards of our young people of to-day. I object to making marital unfaithfulness a joke, to advertising constantly the habit of drinking, to the general “looseness” of some of the material broadcast. I think these things are unnecessary, and when I think of the tremendous responsibility which the young people of to-day will have to bear after the war I feel that the great medium of the radio should be used to lift them up rather than to lower their standards of thought.’ The Directors of the B.B.C. should remember that it is a national corporation and they have no license to allow objectionable programmes to be presented to the public
The Archbishop of York at Moscow.—Newspapers in this country reported that, on 21st September, the Archbishop of York, Dr. Garbett, attended a special service at Moscow Cathedral to mark the “Feast of the Nativity of Our Lady,” that is, of the birth of Mary the mother of Jesus. At the conclusion of the service Dr. Garbett said to the audience: “I have flown 7,000 miles to tell the Holy Orthodox Church of Russia, and the people of this great nation, of the great sympathy of the Church of England with you in all the terrible sufferings brought upon your nation by the treacherous and unprovoked Nazi attack. We rejoice with you in the very great victories your armies are now winning.” This was a very proper and opportune message to go from the Church of England to the Russian Church and people. And indeed the whole British Commonwealth, the United States, and the other Allied Nations would heartily join in it. But what was the Archbishop of York doing at that Russian Church service to mark the religious festival of the birth of the Virgin Mary? Did he represent the Church of England when he honoured with his presence that utterly unscriptural and un-Protestant devotion to Mary the mother of Jesus—a devotion in which both the Orthodox Church of Russia and the Roman Catholic Church are at one, but which all Protestants denounce? Are the British people to take it that the Church of England is free to practise the Mariolatry that is so pronounced a feature in the cult of the Orthodox Church of Russia and the Roman Catholic Church?—Bulwark.
Words Fitly Spoken.—”It seems to us,” says the Evangelical Christian, “that a strange blindness afflicts our leading men when it comes to speaking of the future of this world. They feel that it has been left to man to map the future for himself and to chart the course that humanity will take in utter and complete independence of God and the sacrifice of Calvary. It seems as though our statesmen were determined that God shall have no part in the reconstruction of the world, that the fact of sin shall be ignored, and the Cross of Christ be unrecognized as a factor in determining the destinies of men and nations. It is, therefore, left out of all their reckoning, and being left out it makes all their specious planning and their exalted idealism of none effect. As long as sin remains in this world wars will remain, and this present age of human history will close in the most gigantic struggle of all. It is a pity that men will not look into the Word of God and see what it has to say regarding the future. They would be saved many a heartache and many a disappointment if they did, and would see how utterly at variance in many things are the words of God and the words of man.”
Rev. Dr. Elder, Rothesay.—We had thought that by this time most of our readers were fairly familiar with the Disruption and those who took part in the same. It seems we were mistaken. Dr. Elder the first part of whose sermon has appeared in the December issue and the concluding part in this was born at Inverary in 1808; ordained at Kilbrandon in 1831; translated to Rothesay West in 1847 as the successor to the saintly Peter MacBride. He died in 1892 at the ripe age of 84.