CARDINAL VAUGHAN’S PATRIOTISM.
Cardinal Vaughan, the Romish Archbishop of Westminster, composed a statement to be read by all his officiating clergy to their flocks on the Sabbath before the Queen’s Jubilee. The document ostensibly breathes the spirit of the most approved patriotism. He gives thanks for the personal virtues of the Queen, for the material progress of the Empire during her long reign, for the improved condition of the poor, for the civilising influences of the British people upon foreign races, and with courtier like adroitness he notes the good deeds of the Prince of Wales toward the London Hospitals. Then rising to the supernatural sphere, he praises the religious sentiments of the people and their continued attachment to the Holy Scriptures as the Word of God (sic.) But his highest and most religious cause of thanksgiving is to be found in the growth of the Catholic Church under the ægis of the civil and religious liberty of Britain. He traces this growth from the Tractarian movement in the Church of England, fifty years ago, which movement he again refers to in the leaven infused by the 8000 French priests banished from their country at the Revolution and harboured by England, where they shone like stars in the darkness. He notes that antiquated restrictions and disabilities have during Her Majesty’s reign given place to freedom of speech and action. The people of England have said, “We are Free Traders and open wide our markets to the world. If you possess religious truths and medicines that heal the soul, come, preach and administer them as you will.” This, says the Cardinal, we have done; this we shall continue to do. We seek no privilege, but equal right. We injure no one, and covet no man’s goods. We preach Jesus Christ crucified, and the Church which He founded upon Peter. He then goes on to give figures, showing the great increase of his Church during the Queen’s reign. In 1837 the number of Romish priests was 486, in 1897 they have increased to 2686. The Cardinal speaking of those ritualistic members of the Church of England, who have set their faces towards Rome, quotes on their behalf the apostle’s words, “Being confident of this very thing that he who hath begun this good work will carry it on till the day of Christ.” Some things in this document will appear very remarkable to our readers. To pose as a patriot is perhaps no new thing for a Romish official, but to render thanks for the Biblical zeal and knowledge of a people is carrying the farce too far. The Cardinal’s gladness at the Scriptural tendencies of the British people, we believe to be a piece of rank hypocrisy—his patriotism is just good playacting, but his facts and figures should be taken seriously.
GARNISHING THE SEPULCHRE OF A SAINT.
Thirteen hundred years ago, Columba, the pioneer of Scottish Christianity died, and on Wednesday, 9th June, a multitude of modern religionists visited the place to garnish the sepulchre of this righteous man. We deny not, that in the great scheme of Providence this may have fallen out in fulfilment of that word, “The righteous shall be held in everlasting remembrance,” but as a human procedure it was instinct with all the faults of the degenerate Christianity of the present day. The pilgrims to Columba’s shrine on this occasion were a party of ex-Moderators, and high officials of the Church of Scotland, along with great plenty of sightseers intent to enjoy a new spectacle. They first held a Gaelic service in Iona Cathedral, a service severely simple in form, and then an English service, which was helped out by an organ and trained choir from Glasgow. The clergy entered the Church from the sacristy, walking in processional order, wearing their gowns and academic hoods. Dr. M’Gregor, of St. Cuthbert’s, Edinburgh, preached the commemorative sermon, from the text, “Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place is holy ground.” The newspapers report that the whole business was very impressive. A band of Scottish Episcopalians were on the scene at the same time. Next week the Romanists invaded the island in great force, intent upon a like errand. They, however, are well schooled and skilled in the art of religious playacting, and their performance was much more to the purpose than the raw timorous Presbyterian attempt. Mass was celebrated by the Bishop of Argyll and the Isles. His Grace of Edinburgh, delivered a sermon in English, and Father Campbell discoursed in Gaelic, not without argumentative heat. He made out Columba to be a Catholic of the first water, and boldly denied Presbyterians or Episcopians to have part or lot with him. Cowper speaking of perverse religious disputation, pictures “both parties claiming truth, and truth disclaiming both.” The like, we think, is true here. Columba, we suppose to have been a real fleshy Christian, who worshipped God in the spirit and had no confidence in the flesh. He, yet speaking, through extant memorials disclaims all connection with a spectacular religion, and bids all that motley band not to affront his ashes.
STATE REGULATION OF VICE.
This painful subject was before the Free Assembly, and is at present discussed throughout the country. It is a subject that we would willingly keep a thousand miles away, but it is impossible consistently to ignore it. The Government of our country is involved in a system of things in India that is a blot upon Christian civilisation. It would appear that in the proximity of the barracks of our soldiers women of low character are recruited, and facilities for immorality provided. This is done with the special sanction of our authorities, and even under special medical supervision. What is the reason given for this systematic provision for the breach of the seventh commandment? It is said the avoidance of disease. It is unblushingly declared that men will not refrain from immorality in India, and that they are liable to incur disease which is inevitably transmitted with serious consequences to their families. The government, it appears, have taken in hand to supervise this state of things,—not by moral influence to check it,—but by special provision and medical superintendence to regulate it, so as to avert the physical consequences that ensue. Now, this will appear in the eyes of every moral and upright man to be a most unworthy accommodation to the vicious propensities of mankind. It secures the removal of the fear of consequences, which is one of the most powerful means of preventing vice. God has established in admirable justice an indissoluble link between vice and disease, and what God hath joined the government of this nation has boldly attempted to put asunder. The present method is simply a criminal cure of a flagrant crime, and the remedy is worse than the actual plague. The question may be asked, What should be done? The reply will readily occur that the first and natural step is the granting of greater facilities for marriage among soldiers, and, secondly, the establishment of a law that men of immoral lives are not eligible for our armies. Better that we, as a nation, never had an army, and that we should perish from among the nations of the earth, than that the defenders of our empire should be a band of degraded men. What are the chaplains of our forces doing to check this terrible corruption? If they were doing their duty in proclaiming the whole counsel of God from Sabbath to Sabbath, and in conducting religious exercises from day to day of a vigorously Christian character, we are perfectly sure a better state of things would exist. But as long as the present system is allowed to go on no moral progress in any circumstances will be made. The officers of the army are also deeply culpable, for, we understand, that most, if not all of them, approve of the system. How appalling must be the effects of all this on young men who have been brought up in moral and, it may be, religious homes, and who, after enlisting in our army, find that this nation does not expect them to keep the moral law, but has made special provision for their breaking of it, and that without serious consequences! Truly we stand aghast at the moral degradation which has befallen us, and fear that this once Christian nation is rotting at the core. Even a few in the Free Assembly seemed to treat the matter in a half-hearted way. We find, also, that a petition is being signed by women of this country who, while professing to be against the system, have the shameless audacity to describe the evil or vice as unavoidable. Where is our boasted advance in this the close of the nineteenth century when our national morality is at the vanishing point? The infidelity of our Churches, the desecration of our Sabbaths, the immorality of our soldiers, and the licence given by law to all these evils, are voices that loudly call for judgments at the hand of God. May He arise in mercy for our deliverance, or the doom of the nation shall speedily be sealed!
THE QUEEN’S DIAMOND JUBILEE.
On Tuesday, 22nd June, was celebrated the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, or the Sixtieth Anniversary of her reign. London was astir with a huge procession. There were bonfires throughout the country and the population kept holiday. On Thursday following, 305,000 poor people were feasted in London. On Saturday there was a grand Naval Review at Spithead. Britain’s sea power was represented by a line of war vessels extending twenty-five miles long. On Saturday night from nine o’clock till midnight the fleet was illuminated. But the royal salute, uttered by the thousand voices of the cannon, was tame after the dread play of Heaven’s artillery which the day witnessed. It was a day of mighty thunderings. We suppose the occasion of the sixtieth anniversary of a peaceful and outwardly prosperous reign is a lawful cause of thanksgiving and congratulation. There are, however, many black spots on Britain’s sun of prosperity. With her people there is almost universal forgetfulness of God, with her rulers flagrant violation of the authority of the King of Kings. His commandments are set at naught; His very existence ignored. Even these Jubilee celebrations have been full of godlessness. Wherefore should they trench on the sanctity of the Lord’s day by such a triviality as the review of the fleet, for we have seen that the illumination of the ships continued till midnight, and doubtless there was no rest for hours thereafter? This cool setting aside of superior orders for purposes of mere play and display will cost dearly some day.
PROFESSOR JOHNSTON’S CASE.
The Privy Council have sustained the finding of the University Court against the Professor, and it is said that if the Queen sanctions their decision he will carry the matter to the Court of Session, on the ground of insufficient inquiry at the beginning of the case.