THE LATE ALEXANDER FRASER, DORES.
It is with much regret that we record this month the sudden death of Mr. Alexander Fraser, Dores, which took place on the 15th March. Deceased was a highly esteemed elder in our congregation at Inverness, and the loss to them and the Church at large is very great. Mr. Fraser was eminently a man of prayer, a wise and prudent counsellor, and adorned the doctrine of Christ by a walk and conversation becoming the gospel. He leaves a widow (sister of Mrs. Macdonald, Shieldaig) and young son, to whom we desire to extend our deepest sympathy. We expect to have a fuller notice in next issue.
GOLD AT KLONDYKE.
The discovery of gold in the remote north-west of Canada has led to feverish adventurers flocking thither from many places, near and remote. 1,200 persons are reported to be waiting at Dyer and Skagway until the approach of spring has made the mountains passable. The passion for gold is one which certainly begets diligence and enterprise; but it is likely there is little leaven of spiritual mindedness in all that army of gold seekers who are invading Klondyke. Nevertheless they are fulfilling a part in the divine scheme, and the gold of Klondyke that is now, we fear, instrumental in destroying souls, shall doubtless one day be a happy means to promote a nobler end. The exalted Mediator has need of gold, and it is written that He shall get it. “For he shall live, and to him shall be given of the gold of Sheba.” “Surely the isles shall wait for me, and the ships of Tarshish first, to bring thy sons from far, their silver and their gold with them.”
MR. M’ASKILL’S STRANGE DEVELOPMENT.
The British Weekly, of 17th February, is pretty circumstantial on the subject of the union negotiations. We give the excerpt bearing on the matter, by which our readers will see the surprising figure that the F.C. Minister of Dingwall, and others are making. “The Joint Union Committee of the Free and United Presbyterian Churches spent the greater part of two days last week in considering the reports of sub-committees on the formula, finance, and the training of students. The last subject did not occupy much time. It was agreed that there should be in the united Church three colleges, with six professors each in Edinburgh and Glasgow, and five in Aberdeen. More time was spent on the formula. The questions in connection with which divisions took place were very much questions of phraseology, a strong desire being manifested to have nothing introduced which should either impose new obligations on the united Church or hinder anyone from advocating principles there which he is allowed to maintain in the community to which he at present belongs. Finance, too, gave rise to a good deal of conversation, the systems in the two negotiating churches being in some ways very different. The matter has been recommitted. At the meetings the attendance was very large. On the Free Church side the chief speakers were Dr. Rainy, Dr. Ross Taylor, and Mr. Taylor Innes; on the United Presbyterian side Dr. Hutton, Dr. M’Ewan, and Dr. Orr. Mr. M’Askill gave valuable assistance, and is said to have impressed all by his loyalty and good sense. Dr. Winter’s acquaintance with the subject was again in evidence. The spirit pervading the conference was admirable.” The “loyalty” of Mr. M’Askill seems a somewhat doubtful quality. We are not quite sure to what or to whom he is loyal—certainly not to his former self, certainly not to the memory of his predecessor in Dingwall. It seems the chiefs of the constitutionalist party are bent on proving in a conclusive manner the necessity and propriety of secession from the degenerate majority, the necessity at least, if a good conscience and a good profession were to be conserved. Mr. M’Askill and his friends stood at the parting of the ways and took the wrong turn, and now having gone a mile with the enemy he is compelling them to go twain.
LAST WORDS OF CRIMINALS.
Recently we observed in the newspapers farewell letters by two criminals about to undergo the last sentence. Several things appeared in these letters that were to us objectionable from a religious point of view. But the following words especially struck us with rather a painful shock: “I have made my peace with God.” We need hardly tell our readers that this is quite an unscriptural expression, and betrays a totally unsound view of things. No sinner can make his peace with God. It is Christ alone who made peace between God and guilty men, and we cannot add anything to His finished work. What is needed is that we obtain faith to accept of and rest upon Christ as our peace. But the above expression is entirely on the lines of the covenant of works, and manifests a lamentable ignorance of the facts that “by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified,” (Gal. ii. 16), and that Christ has “made peace through the blood of his cross.”—(Col. i. 20.) But some of our readers may exclaim, “What can you expect from poor ignorant criminals but wrong views of religion?” We might answer that their ignorance is culpable with an open Bible in a Christian country. But sorry we are to say that the blame of the ignorance must be shared by persons who should know unspeakably better. These criminals wrote their letters under the eye of prison chaplains, ministers of the gospel, who are appointed for the very purpose of instructing them in the right way. In one case, the chaplain read out with evident approval the prisoner’s letter, and delivered a prayer expressing the very same religious ideas as it contained. We hardly know who to pity more, the chaplains or the prisoners. The former will have to account for more at the great day than the latter. They will have to answer for sending poor ignorant men into eternity with a lie in their right hand. Truly our country is in a pitiable state of religious degeneracy. Delusion finds its way everywhere. The very men who should know the gospel best are as ignorant of it as the Hottentots, and are thus ruining the souls of thousands.
NO SABBATH TRAINS.
There are still some railways in the kingdom where no trains run on Sabbath. The Great North of Scotland is one of them. At the meeting of this company on Wednesday, 16th March, Lord Saltoun urged the institution of at least one Sabbath train, but the chairman, Mr. Ferguson, resolutely put his foot down. He would never assent to Sabbath trains, he declared, and he believed he would be supported by the bulk of the directors. He was, and not only by the directors, but by the shareholders. Mr. Ferguson bases his Sabbath policy on the propriety of providing a weekly day of rest to all the employees. By the way, the record of the Great North of Scotland Railway in recent years has been one of continual progress. Has (asks the Westminster Gazette) that anything to do with its Sabbath policy?
CLAP-TRAP PULPIT ADVERTISING.
The following pointed letter on the above subject appeared in the Scotsman of 26th March. A sad day has come upon Scotland when such levity and irreverence have invaded the pulpit. Clap-trap advertisements are now very common in the south :—
“SIR,—You often render a valuable service to the cause of religion by exposing in your columns the clap-trap and humbug resorted to by many preachers of the present day in advertising their Sabbath wares. I have just come across a remarkable illustration of this, and perhaps you or some of your readers may be able to explain to me by what particular chemical process the extraordinary result referred to in the advertisement, a copy of which I send to you, is effected. The advertiser is a Free Church minister in one of our Border manufacturing towns, and the advertisement, which appeared last week in one of the local newspapers, is as follows:—
— Free Church.
To-morrow, 11.15 and 6.
Rev. —
Evening.—The marriage ring; how it may be burnished into brightness and how it may be darkened into cold iron.
Strangers cordially invited.
I have always understood that marriage rings were of gold, and if that be so, here we have a bit of clerical conjuring proposed to be done: the changing—no, the darkening, which makes the trick all the more mysterious—the darkening of gold into cold iron! Imagine a minister of the Gospel trying to catch hearers with such utter rubbish as this! Is it any wonder that the pulpit is regarded by many with feelings of contempt and ridicule when men who occupy it resort to this sort of thing?—I am, &c.,
DEMETRIUS.”