RELIGIOUS OSTRICHES.—What numbers of professors I have known who go into one place of worship, and hear one form of doctrine, and apparently approve it, because the teacher is “a clever man!” They hear an opposite teaching, and they are equally at home, because again it is “a clever man!” They join a church and you ask them, “Do you agree with the views of that community?” They neither know nor care what those views may be; one doctrine is as good as another to them. Their spiritual appetite can enjoy soap as well as butter; they can digest bricks as well as bread. These religious ostriches have a marvellous power of swallowing anything; they have no spiritual discernment, no appreciation of truth. They follow any clever person, and in this, prove that they are not sheep of our Lord’s pasture, of whom it is written, “A stranger will they not follow, for they know not the voice of strangers.”—Late Rev. C. H. Spurgeon.
ROMISH WINDOW FOR AN ESTABLISHED CHURCH.—It is not a new thing for professing Protestant churches in Scotland to have windows decorated with idolatrous figures after the example of Rome. Witness St. Giles, Edinburgh. But it seems the mania for external decoration of the Romish type is spreading. The latest case is in connection with St. George’s, Edinburgh, over which presides Dr. Scott, last Moderator of the General Assembly of the Established Church. Somehow it was the impression that
Dr. Scott was one of those that inclined rather to the old paths, but the impression seems to have been a mistake. This new window which is to adorn his church is decorated with a representation of the ascension of Christ. “The composition divides itself,” it is stated, “into two important groups. The upper one consists of our Lord in the act of blessing, surrounded by a group of angels, whose wings of varied colour, mostly blue, become a background emphasising the principal figure. A band of cherubs and cloud-forms of varied rubies separate the upper from the lower group, which latter consists of apostles and the Virgin Mary; some kneeling, others standing, but all with upturned faces concentrated on the ascending figure.” This is the sort of thing that is now the ornament of professing Christian Churches. The true beauty of a church, we understand, is to have the spiritual image of Christ stamped upon the souls of its members, and the example of Christ embodied in their life and conversation. When this is lost, the resort to unlawful images impressed upon wood or glass is simply the setting up of an unworthy tombstone over a grave full of dead men’s bones. The outside may attract the carnal eye of men, the inside is the abode of death, rottenness, and corruption.
THE NEW ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY.—A scene took place at the confirmation of Dr. Temple, the Archbishop-elect of Canterbury. When objections were called for, a certain Rev. S. D. Brownjohn entered dissent for the reason that Dr. Temple was a believer in the theory of evolution, a theory that is inconsistent with the doctrine of Creation as contained in the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England. The dissent, however, was brushed aside without much parley, and Mr. Brownjohn contends that the call for objections is a mere form of no value. It would appear, however, that this is Mr. Brownjohn’s sole contention. He himself holds strongly the theory of evolution, and professes to desire that the standards of the English Church should be so adjusted that persons holding this theory might consistently hold office in that body without any valid objection to the contrary. The above method of protest at the Archbishop’s confirmation, he declares, was the most effectual means he could adopt to draw attention to the subject. Apart from Mr. Brownjohn’s intention, this incident sheds light upon the laxity with which creeds are held nowadays even by men assuming the highest religious profession. Proof is given in such a case as above, not only of a lack of reverence for the doctrines of the Word of God, but also of a conspicuous want of moral honesty. Dishonesty and infidelity are in no wise sanctified though the guilty party should be an Archbishop. The Word of God and the moral law are authorities which all must acknowledge, and they will one day judge the peasant and the prince, the meanest criminal in the gaol, and the highest dignitary in the professing Church.
“ET TU, BRUTE!”—When the noble Cæsar, covered with wounds, was stabbed last of all by Brutus, he was too sorrowful to be angry, and he exclaimed, “And thou also, friend Brutus!” Such an exclamation may well escape the lips of Dr. Bruce and “Ian Maclaren,” for the one has been wounded by The Free Church Monthly, and the other has been attacked by The British Weekly. Both have lately published books of theology, and both have been too embarrassingly heterodox to please their respective journals. A sense of danger and insecurity has overtaken the editors of these eminently safe and conservative publications, and they have been forced to hoist the danger signal. As for Dr. Bruce’s book “With Open Face,” the following are some criticisms of The Free Church Monthly upon it:—”It is disappointing to meet with so little recognition of the fact that the evangelists are inspired.” “There is unquestionably unfortunate vagueness in the presentation at once of the doctrine of the person of Christ and of the atonement.” “The thoughts are often rather those of the intellectual critic than those of the whole Christian man,” with more of the like sort. The Rev. “Ian Maclaren,” alias Dr. Watson, in his new book “The Cure of Souls,” is reproved in the following manner by The British Weekly, the journal which has nourished and brought him up: “Dr. Watson’s lectures lack power and sting.” “When Dr. Watson speaks of the atonement he is invariably unsatisfactory.” “There is something little short of childishness in such examples as Dr. Watson gives (to elucidate the mystery of the atonement), and they show that the great truth of the propitiation is but darkly apprehended.” “We miss the tremendous emphasis with which the New Testament draws the line between the church and the world.” If some obscure evangelical preacher or writer had handled these men of light and leading in this fashion, it would of course befit them well to take no notice, but let them beware when their adverse critics are the men of their own household.
A MERE MUSICAL AND LITERARY CLUB.—The British Weekly has received the programme of a series of Sabbath evening praise services to be held in St. John’s Free Church, Glasgow. On each occasion the minister, the Rev. J. S. Carroll, M.A., will deliver an address in the middle of the service. The subjects announced are “Tennyson’s ‘Palace of Art,'” “Browning’s ‘An Epistle of Karshish,'” and “Rubaiyat of Omar Khayzam.”
OH! the hell of horrors and terrors that attend those souls that have their greatest work to do when they come to die. Therefore, as you would be happy in death, and everlastingly blessed after death, prepare and fit yourselves for death.—Dr. Thomas Goodwin.