The Edinburgh Festival.
Edinburgh is having its annual three weeks of Music and Drama. The Festival seems to have come to stay. Whatever pleasure this may give the Civic Authorities it will be cause of sincere regret to all who truly fear the Lord. Judging by press reports, Festival time transforms parts of the city into a veritable “Vanity Fair.” Two considerations only seem to matter—how to attract the largest possible number of visitors, and having attracted them, how to please them. The visitor is everything—English, Continental or American; and except as he contributes to the general success of the enterprise, the citizen of Edinburgh is for the time being quite over-shadowed. To ensure success no price seems too much to pay. In the frenzied efforts to please, Edinburgh itself goes Continental and God, the Bible, conscience, the hallowed associations of an Edinburgh of other and better days are thrust aside without compunction. The consequent desecration of the Lord’s Day is specially to be deplored. What with military tattoos, the playing of bands, so called sacred concerts, and crowds of people searching for entertainment, the Lord’s Day has ceased to be typical of the Scottish Sabbath sanctified to holy uses and approaches nearer than ever before to the “Continental Sunday.” There are doubtless many in Edinburgh and elsewhere who view these things with profound grief of heart, and in the highest and best sense these citizens of Edinburgh are the city’s truest well-wishers; but the utter disregard paid to the outraged feelings of the godly is as much a symptom of these evil days as it was when righteous Lot was vexed with the ungodliness of Sodom. We are told that the Festival is a great success. When success is judged by earthly standards that may be so, but when weighed in the “balances of the sanctuary,” who can estimate the price paid. “What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his soul,” and what shall it profit a city, even should the whole world of art, music and drama sit at its feet, if that city has lost its soul? One of the most deplorable features of the whole proceedings is the manner in which the sacred (so called) is mixed up with the profane; indeed, the Festival was opened on a Sabbath by a service of dedication (whatever that means) in St. Giles’ Cathedral. By such means the devil first blinds the judgment and deadens the conscience, then unlimited scope is left for indulgence in all kinds of pleasure without scruple. Some forms of sin are highly intellectual, accomplished and respectable, but it is sin none the less—hateful to God and death to the souls of men.
The Exmoor Floods.
News of the devastating floods in North Devon on the night of the 15th August has aroused widespread sympathy throughout the country for the people of the affected area, and to appeals for help the response, both in money and kind, has been most gratifying. The villages of Lynton and Lynmouth in the valley of the Lyn appear to have suffered the most extensive damage. There has been considerable loss of life and property, as many as 30 being reported drowned. One local councillor, Mr. Tom Floyd, lost his wife, son and daughter, his son-in-law and two grand-children; among the others were three Boy Scouts who were camping nearby, and others on holiday. We often hear the climate of Britain maligned, but we should be thankful, disasters of this kind and magnitude are not common. On that account the voice that speaks to the country from Lynmouth is weighted with all the greater solemnity. Who in looking forward to holidays thinks of disaster and death? Who in the course of preparing for holidays—and how absorbing these preparations can be—ever thinks of preparing for death? Who in preparing to receive and entertain visitors ever thinks of preparing to entertain this most certain of all visitors, Death? On the other hand how consoling it is for those who are by grace strangers and pilgrims on this earth, whose citizenship is in heaven, to reflect on the indestructible bond securing for them a heavenly inheritance, so that whatever the form of death, and however unexpected, it immediately effects an entrance into their eternal inheritance. To the thief on the cross, death assumed an awful form, yet Jesus assures him, “To-day,” the very day of his death, “To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise.”
Eva Peron.
The Roman Catholic Church has nothing to learn in the effective use of propaganda. No opportunity is lost which can be turned to account. When Eva Peron, the late wife of the President of Argentine, died, her death provided an opportunity of which full advantage was taken. It appears that at the various public services, attended by great crowds of people, and during the lying in state, the scenes of religious excitement and fervour exceeded all description. We learn that even in London a service of requiem mass was said for the soul of the Senora, and at this service the Queen of Great Britain was represented.
Eva Peron rose from lowly parentage by way of the stage to be first lady in the Argentine Republic. Among her own people she wielded a magnetic influence. Her hatred of and contempt for Britain she never attempted to hide. That the Queen of Great Britain was represented at a service of mass said for the soul of this woman will be an occasion for profound grief of heart to every loyal Protestant in Britain.