INSANE LIBERALISM.
The Hollander who would busy himself destroying the sea wall that keeps his fields dry would show little respect for the wisdom of his ancestors, and less for his own welfare.
We also have our dykes and breakwaters planted down in the religious sphere to repel worse floods than those of the North Sea. Yet the wisdom of the nineteenth century thinks it advisable to level these without further ado. This at least seems to be the import of the easy goodfellowship with Romanists and Unitarians which is now reported on the part of professed Protestants and Evangelicals. Within this last fortnight we have seen Dean Farrar, the Protestant dignitary of Canterbury, amicably piloting a company of Romanists through Canterbury Cathedral. These Romanists were members of the “Catholic Truth Society,” possibly the same forward lot who lately were in evidence at Glasgow. At a meeting of the Society held thereafter, Cardinal Vaughan thanked the Protestant Dean for his courtesy, but intimated that he regarded him only as the temporary custodian of a building which rightfully belonged to a more ancient church. To admit the reprieved burglar into good society, and courteously show him over the house which he broke into before, and means to break into again, is politeness run mad. Even such politeness has Dean Farrar shewn.
But a more pronounced example of disloyalty to the vital principles of Christianity, and a more reckless lapse into a false liberalism is reported from Rothiemurchus. Episcopal dalliance with Popery is bad, but Presbyterian fellowship with Unitarians is worse. We allude to the meeting held on a recent Sabbath evening in Rothiemurchus to inaugurate a “Young Men’s Christian Association.” Mr. M’Dougall, parish minister, was in the chair, and the Revs. Dr. Reith and Mr. Gordon, Free Church ministers, spoke from the platform. But the prominent figure there was Dr. Martineau, the high priest of Unitarianism in this country. This gentleman, famed for literature and philosophy, is a Unitarian grown grey in the service of his bad creed. His distinctive tenet (which he was at no pains to conceal from the audience at Rothiemurchus) is that Jesus is not God. By him, therefore, both the foundation and the copestone of Christianity are destroyed; and yet, forsooth, he is paraded and patronised at the inauguration of a “Young Men’s Christian Association,” and professed ambassadors of the King of Kings countenance him, while he is trampling their Master’s brightest crown under foot. There is a timely and proper intolerance which is obligatory on all sound professors of the Christian faith. “With such an one,” says the apostle, “no not to eat.” “If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not unto your house, neither bid him God speed.” What unapostolic charity, therefore, do we practice at the close of the nineteenth century.
If Baal be God let us follow him, but do not let us affect an impossible union between God and Baal.
AN OPTIMISTIC CHRISTIAN.
The Rev. John Munro, minister at Halkirk, was a Christian of a joyous and hopeful disposition. “He was a good man, and brought good tidings.” The Most High fashions some of His people thus that there may be variety in His kingdom. The morning of the Communion Sabbath at Halkirk, in the year of the Disruption, was lowering and unpromising, and one of Mr. Munro’s elders expressed a fear that they would have a bad day. But the minister, walking by faith, had better news to tell. “No Donald,” said he, “we will have a good day; what the Lord gives will be good, many a good day He has given us, and He will give us a good eternity.” The chronicler records that the weather mended and was fine all the day, according to the word of John Munro.
MUNICIPAL DOTAGE.
There are a great many wrong ideas and foolish practices prevailing at present in Town Councils. We live in an age when babes are appointed to rule. There is an almost universal degeneracy in the personnel of councillors and magistrates. Persons are invested with office whose main qualifications are frivolity and self-importance. Men void of understanding clamber into Boards and Council Chambers, and there play costly fantastic tricks that make the ratepayers weep. The poor city of Glasgow has been much vexed of late with the fads and whims of such busybodies. The latest folly that was threatened was the “Free” Library. At a time when the main reading of educated people is novels, and when these are so cheap that a barrow load can be got for a trifle of money, it is seriously proposed to equip a dispensary in each quarter of the city for the distribution of free reading—to tax driven shopkeepers and poor women who keep lodgers in order that all the loafers in the neighbourhood may have leave to doze and dawdle over a novel. The essential folly and wickedness of such a proposal, one would think, are self-evident. As much sanity, however, has been found in the city and council as has for the present shelved the project. Happy is the city or parish that is guided by wise councillors, men who have some knowledge of human nature, and have profited by the lessons of scripture, of history, and of experience. What the world needs is not novels, nor brass bands, nor other drugs, but life. The civil magistrate cannot supply this life, but let him at all events refrain from deepening the death. Let his treatment of the ills of society be that of the wise physician, and not the criminal procedure of the unprincipled quack, wheedling the patient into swallowing drugs and palliatives that procure ease at the expense of future pain.
A GREAT MAN ON HIS TRAVELS.
This is “Ian Maclaren” alias Rev. John Watson, D.D., the author of “Drumtochty” and other profitable and immortal works. He has been sojourning lately at Laggan Bridge, and there has been studying the “secession” movement. As he tours among the simple peoples of his native country he looks on all things with a business eye. Soon he will present the results in a new “kailyard” novel wherein “secessionists” and other types will flit across the page in grotesque picturesque movement. The idle populations of Britain and America, thankful to be amused, will applaud the performance, and ten editions thereof will sell at a brisk rate. There is nothing so profitable now-a-days to authors and publishers as a good going “kailyard” novel or a piece of risky theology. Nevertheless, what shall it profit a Doctor of Divinity who writes novels and utters bad theology, if he gain the applause of two hemispheres, but finds in the end that he has not saved a single soul?
THE TURK AS MODERATOR.
A lady missionary, lately returned from the Holy Land, informs us that such are the passions that actuate the three Christian sects who dispute the possession of the supposed birthplace of Christ at Bethlehem, that were it not for the presence of the Turkish soldiery they would come to blows on the spot. The three sects are the Romanists, the Greek Christians, and the Maronites, and it seems they hate each other well.
A STUPID PRACTICE.
We allude to the practice of interviewing a great man and publishing the results in a magazine. The smart reporter invades the great man’s office or study and diligently pumps him for personal jottings. Thus the fact is brought to light that he takes a cold bath in the morning, that he uses the type-writer and doesn’t ride the bicycle, that his new book is nearly completed, and that his wife and he commenced house-keeping on £60 per annum. These important particulars being noted, are published in the magazine for behoof of the gossipy crew who read the same. All this is to the great jeopardy of the great man’s modesty, for he is publicly told that he is a gifted and popular fellow. Such proceedings are of a very risky and unnecessary character. The children of Adam are all debauchees in self-glorifying from their youth up. To explode the dynamite that lurks in each man’s bosom by an electric shock of public puffery is an unneighbourly act. Christ did not pronounce his eulogium on John the Baptist till John’s messengers were out of hearing, neither will a right-hearted man readily lend himself to the carrying out of such quackery. “It is not good to eat much honey, so for men to search their own glory is not glory.” People should cultivate moral delicacy, and not degenerate into mere stalking horses of self applause.
THE LENGTH AND BREADTH OF THE LAND.
A person who owns an estate usually takes interest in every part of his possessions. Not the cultivated portion only, where his mansion is, but even the outlying heaths, lochs, and hilltops have a homeliness for him. When God conferred a large estate on Abraham, He said—”Arise and walk through the land, in the length of it and in the breadth of it.” Even such an inheritance as this is the Bible to a Christian man. The landscape of Scripture is wide and varied, and according to differences in individual character and experience one believer may find himself more at home in one part than another. “Everyone hath a psalm, hath a doctrine, hath an interpretation.” But there is no good man or minister but would fear to be partial in the law. He would not like to dismember the Word of God by ignoring any part of it. Answerably to the apostolic dictum that “all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable,” every right-hearted man feels that he ought to abound in the knowledge of every part thereof; because not Paul only, and Isaiah, and the Psalms, but Nehemiah also, and Chronicles, and Judges are necessary to the perfecting of the man of God. In the Original Secession Church there is a rule observed which we would fain have in force among ourselves. It is the ordinance of the Sabbath morning lecture, whereby a whole book of Scripture is gone over in order. A chapter or extended portion is undertaken at a time, and the gist of it is given in one view. How fruitful and interesting the method may become is known to everyone who has read Dr. M’Crie’s lectures on the book of Esther. In one of John Knox’s writings, entitled “A most wholesome counsel touching God’s holy Word,” addressed to the common people of Scotland, who, for want of regular preaching, were fain to be content with the public reading of the Scripture, he says—”Further, in reading the Scriptures, I would ye should join some books of the Old and some of the New Testament together; as Genesis and one of the evangelists, Exodus with another, and so forth, ever ending such books as ye begin (as the time will suffer); for it shall greatly comfort you to hear that harmony and well-tuned song of the Holy Spirit speaking in our fathers from the beginning. It shall comfort you in these dangerous and perilous days to behold the face of Christ Jesus’ loving spouse and kirk, from Abel to Himself and from Himself to this day, in all ages to be one. Be frequent in the prophets and in the epistles of St. Paul, for the multitude of matters most comfortable therein contained requireth exercise and good memory.” The spirit and scope of these remarks is none other than that professing Christians of all degrees, eschewing the one-sided disproportionate tendencies of human nature, should in all spiritual knowledge and conversation endeavour to be as broad and varied as the Scripture itself.
ORDINATION AT ULLAPOOL.
On Tuesday, 14th September, the Rev. John Macleod, M.A., was ordained to the pastorate of the congregation of Lochbroom. The members of Presbytery present were Rev. Donald Macfarlane, Raasay, Rev. Roderick Mackenzie, Portree, and Mr. John Mackenzie, elder, Gairloch. Rev. Mr. Mackenzie, Portree, preached and presided. After sermon, Mr. Mackenzie put the questions to the pastor-elect, who, having signed the formula, was ordained to the office of pastor over the congregation of Lochbroom. Mr. Mackenzie then addressed the newly ordained pastor as to his duties, and Mr. Macfarlane the congregation as to theirs. There was a large congregation.