A Dangerous Diagnosis.
The doctor has concluded his examination and now turns to the parents with an assuring smile. “It is true that there is a large spot on the right lung; that the heart is seriously affected; that there are unmistakable symptoms of infantile paralysis, and there seems to be a few other matters requiring attention. But there is nothing to worry over. Your child might be much worse. What you have to take notice of is the number of organs which are not affected. That leg, this arm, these fingers, for instance, are all in a healthy condition. Nothing to worry over, I assure you.” Now what are we to think of this unprofessional assessment of a condition so grave and serious? Was the doctor sincere? Was his examination too superficial? Was he more concerned to please than to cure? Was he expected to say something, and decided to say it, but in a manner fitted to remove concern at any cost? Was he more anxious not to embarrass those concerned than to make a full disclosure of the disease? Was he anxious to retain a cheap popularity at the cost of suppressing unpleasant truths? It is difficult to know, but these were some of the bewildering and painful questions which passed through my mind on reading the article, “The Presbyterian Church in Canada,” in the January issue of the Free Church Record, by Prof. Alex. Ross, D.D.
In these pages, Professor Ross gives his readers some impressions of the Presbyterian Church of Canada. He finds in this Church the presence of the three most common and most dangerous evils found in present-day Church life: Modernism, Barthianism and Ritualism. The Professor, however, finds no difficulty in writing these off as being of too little significance to alter his opinion of the Church as a whole. Profound and far-reaching though the influence of this corruption goes, we must not lose sight of the many good things in this body. These things in their nature and plenitude should give rise to a glowing optimism. And so with an easy geniality the Professor dismisses doubt and dread. But doubt and dread refused to leave my mind. Frankly, I was so amazed that
for a moment I wondered whether or not I had picked up the right magazine. I had made no mistake, however, and I began to wonder how serious minded people in the Professor’s own Church would view the matter. Certainly they must have had many disturbing thoughts as they noted the readiness wherewith the “untempered mortar” found a diligent trowel in the Professor’s pen.—J. Tallach, Oban.
Sabbath Concerts Do Not Pay.
It was reported in the press in February that Inverness Town Council lost over £22 on two Sabbath evening concerts held in the Town Hall to attract young people off the streets. A third concert was cancelled, and not before time. Councillor John Macdonald commented that the Council should stop deluding themselves that they are going to care for and look after youth. He said that youth had given its answer. We also read that but a handful of young people attended. It was said that the concerts were too high class, the hall cold and no smoking was allowed. The leaders of youth to-day who think that they will keep the modern young people off the streets on Sabbath evening, by anything other than what the youth find in the theatres, cinemas and dance halls on Saturday evening, are making a great mistake. Either high class or low class worldly entertainment for youth on the Lord’s Day, at the ratepayers’ expense, is unwarranted and unscriptural financial outlay and a disgrace to the Capital of the Highlands. If parents and young people have deliberately abandoned their respective responsibilities to one another in relation to the requirements of God’s Word and His claims regarding the Sabbath and His Sanctuary, then most assuredly the cure is not Sabbath concerts, but the convincing and converting power of the Holy Spirit. Alas! we have for long now, as a generation, grieved the Holy Spirit of God. There is need that we hear a call to repentance. “To-day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your heart” (Ps. xcv).
“The Gospel Magazine” and Pre-millennialism.
As one who has widely commended, and made known, The Gospel Magazine among many of our people, at home and abroad, I feel that a note of warning, in these days of abounding errors, is necessary. My motive in making known this evangelical inter-denominational magazine among our people was for their encouragement, as thus enabling them to see that the Scriptural doctrines, which are dear to us as a denomination, are valued and upheld by not a few on the other side of the Cheviot Hills also. It is all the more regrettable, therefore, that we are now obliged to utter a note of warning to readers relative to the tendency, of late years, to review, favourably, in the pages of The Gospel Magazine, books and booklets of Pre-millennialian views. For instance, a book entitled, One Second Coming of Christ, by Pastor William J. Rowlands, was favourably commended in a review in The Gospel Magazine for December, 1950, despite its Pre-millennialism.—J. P. MacQ.
O Christians! give not place to Satan; no, not an inch, in his first motions. He that is a beggar, and a modest one without doors, will command the house if he be let in.—Gurnall.