The English Education Act.
The English Education Act.—The following letter from “A Plain Man” to the editor of the British Weekly is worthy the attention of our readers, from the light it throws on the present educational position in England. Under the first head the writer, perhaps too easily, accepts the principle of secular education, but otherwise his sentiments must commend themselves to all free and Protestant people:—“Sir, I object to this Act, as the father of a family—(1) Because it is not an Education Act at all; it is an Act to secure the teaching of Church of England doctrine, whatever that may be. I want a good school for my children; I can see after their religious instruction for myself. (2) I object again, because it deprives me of my rights as a citizen. According to this new Act, it seems I have masters who claim to put their hands into my pocket, not only without my consent, not only to spend the money for a purpose which I abhor, but without giving me the least vestige of control as to the way in which it may be spent. This is Charles I. and ‘the ship money’ over again. This is a violation of the constitutional principle that taxation and representation must go together; that, to put the case in the popular fashion—the man who calls the tune compels somebody else to pay the piper. (3) I object to the Act again, because it is a manifest attempt to seduce and drive the nation into the Anglican fold, or, better still, into the Roman fold. The school door is to be followed by another door—the door into ‘the Church.’ (4) I object to the Act again, because should the promoters of it gain their end, all who should refuse to conform will be left outside of every valuable and important position. There will be no possibility for a poor man’s son to rise. He will be disqualified by want of education and non-conformity for any high post. They indeed condescend so far as to say that the Nonconformist youth may be allowed to be a pupil teacher, or even (how generous!) to be an assistant master, but a head master never. In short, the aim and end of the measure is to secure that, for all time to come, those who refuse to conform may become the helots of society, hewers of wood and drawers of water. Read the story of the French bishops and the persecution of the Huguenots. (5) Finally, I object to the Act because I do not wish my children to become poor priest-ridden creatures, who will have no right to eat meat on Fridays without permission of the priest. Having these objections, and many more, I should consider myself no longer a freeborn Englishman, but a serf, if I paid a rate to uphold such a state of things. Like my forefathers before me, I claim to be a man, I claim to have a conscience, I claim the liberty to follow my conscience, and that I will maintain at all hazards. I was not born to be a slave, or with a saddle on my back for a despot to ride on, be he king, or priest, or aristocracy, or even a chance Parliamentary majority.”
The Memory of John Knox.
The Memory of John Knox.—We are glad that Mr. David Hay Fleming has a prominent place assigned him in the British Weekly to vindicate the character and work of our brave and praiseworthy ancestor, John Knox. Mr. Andrew Lang, the successful writer of books, and Mr. Wm. Law Mathieson, a new author, have both essayed to damage his reputation in various essential particulars. Mr. Fleming, with great wealth of historical lore and commendable zeal for Knox’s good name, has replied, and, we think, very much to the purpose, to both detractors: Whatever real or imaginary objections may be made to Knox and his life-work, his glory undoubtedly is that he has part and lot in that word of Christ: “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you that ye should bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain.” Knox’s work has the quality of permanence. It has stood for over three centuries, and it will be famous in a future day when the clever, worldly-minded brilliancy of the politicians and penmen of the twentieth century has quite vanished from the memory of man.
The Tedium of the Village.
The Tedium of the Village.—From a leader in the Glasgow Herald we learn that some men of light and leading have lately been reviewing the drawbacks incident to life in our villages and rural districts. It is held that the rush to the large cities, which is such a feature of our time, is very much caused by the thirst that besets the villager for a faster and more interesting existence than his monotonous township affords. This theory contains a large degree of truth. The desire for novelty and excitement is a constant factor in human nature, and there is a whirl of business and of pleasure, and an abundance of society in the city, to which young unencumbered people of both sexes may abandon themselves freely. Persons of all tastes and tendencies will find there kindred spirits with whom to improve their time or divert their leisure. It may be conceded that human existence in districts so rural as hardly to contain a village is ill-circumstanced for many important ends and uses of life. It seems to be the Divine plan of society that while agriculture remains the staple employment of mankind, towns and populous places for the cultivation of the arts, the sciences, and the refinements of life should be abundantly planted on the face of the habitable earth. But the present day spectacle of a few monster cities devouring the population and the prosperity of innumerable glens and villages, is a thing of evil omen, and in its last analysis brings us face to face with the fact of original sin. That mighty thirst for money which besets the landlord class, and which produces evictions and depopulations, may result in some present access of the means of fashionable pleasure, but the country is thereby denuded of a race of hardy industrious yeomen and peasants, who constitute the true wealth and defence of the nation. The long result of time will show that a selfish policy of landowning, which violates the instinct of neighbourliness in its dealings with the tenantry, is also a policy of financial folly and national ruin. As for deluded young people who have a useful prospect opening before them in their quiet village sphere, but who discontentedly conceive that they must see life in the city in order to be happy, their day dreams are erroneous and bad. The pursuit of their flighty programme is a mere revolt against the providence of God, and will result in damage and disappointment to themselves. The scene of excitement and noise which they have coveted to enter will, in due course, sicken them, and then they may vainly desire to escape again to those fresh fields and breezy shores that they spurned in the heat and rashness of their wayward youth.
The pervading idea of some schemes which are set on foot to brighten the existence of the unprivileged villager is to assimilate him as nearly as possible to his city brother, as if, forsooth, the city man’s existence was an ideal thing. Thus, one philanthropist, mentioned by the Herald, proposes to gladden the neglected rustic with the radiance of arc lamps in the evening. In most villages of any consequence libraries and reading-rooms are already established, but their popularity is not remarkable. The simple country youth perversely prefers the time-honoured diversions of his predecessors—the smoke at the road-end and the tipple in the village inn, seasoned with such topics of remark as the time of day affords. The truth is, life both in town and country sadly wants some new element to give it zest and interest. The God of Heaven has appointed the Gospel of His Son to be the abiding source of joy and strength to men and nations. If the people and their guides will despise and neglect this Divine provision, they are doomed to mount perpetually the tread mill of vanity and disappointment, and to find the excitement of the city and the fresh air of the country alike powerless to banish the care and gloom.
At the close of the 72nd Psalm we have an interesting and beautiful picture of diffusive prosperity that prevails alike in the quiet country and the busy town—”There shall be an handful of corn in the earth on the top of the mountain; the fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon, and they of the city shall flourish like grass of the earth.” These words, no doubt, have an excellent spiritual significance, but their direct, primary meaning is also good. They tell us that, in that bright future day of the triumph of Christ’s kingdom, the rectified, well-balanced mental state of a regenerated people shall declare itself outwardly by the harmonious, well-ordered condition of the classes and masses alike. The city shall be prosperous, but not after the present unequal, ill-assorted fashion of riotous abundance in the west-end and squalid poverty in the east. The common people shall then flourish like grass refreshed by sun and shower. Nor will the overgrown city stand amid the depressing prospect of rural depopulation and decay. When the God of Heaven arises, after ages of man’s experimenting to build a perfect fabric of human society, there will then be busy, healthy commercial towns and smiling farmlands on all sides stretching to the horizon. Husbandry will then be so vigorous and successful that the very mountains will be green and arable, and the thin earth on the summit, being sown with corn, will yield a harvest luxuriant as Lebanon.
“The earth her fruit shall yield,
Our God shall blessing send,
God shall us bless; man shall Him fear
Unto earth’s utmost end.”
Popish Music by a Presbyterian Choir.
Popish Music by a Presbyterian Choir. The choir of St. George’s Established Church, Edinburgh, under the auspices of the minister (Dr. Scott) and the Kirk-Session recently gave a concert of sacred music in the Music Hall. The main feature of the programme was a piece of music composed for the Popish observance of the Mass by a famous author, Palestrina, some 340 years ago, and known as “Missa Papae Marcelli,” the Mass of Pope Marcellus. It is to be feared that this dabbling in Mass music is preparing the way for the embrace of the idolatrous sacrifice of the Mass itself in due time. The choir is an institution that has never been known to bring forth any really good fruit in connection with the worship of God, but has been almost invariably a demoralising influence in congregations.
Edinburgh Council and “Sunday” Concerts.
Edinburgh Council and “Sunday” Concerts.—It is somewhat refreshing to notice that the Edinburgh Town Council has given its voice by a majority against the letting of the Waverley Market for concerts on Sabbath evenings, conducted by that modern abomination “The Sunday Society.” The Council also refused to pass a motion to the effect that they themselves should adopt the practice of providing concerts on Sabbath evenings in their halls. May the Most High strengthen them more and more in the attitude they have taken up! For assuredly the Sabbath desecration in our large cities is gradually dragging down the common people deeper and deeper into the mire of moral degradation and social misery. The enemies of the holy day of rest in our communities are not only the enemies of the glory of God but also of the good of humanity.
Obituary Notices.
Obituary Notices.—It is with deep sorrow we learn the decease of Angus Gray, Lairg, another of the venerable fathers of the Church and one of the most massive personalities within her borders. He passed away on the evening of Tuesday, the 24th February, at the advanced age of upwards of 93 years. His death, coming so soon after that of the beloved Mr. George Macleod, will be all the more keenly felt by our friends in Lairg. The loss, however, is equally shared by the whole Church.—We also regret to learn that our Ullapool congregation has been bereaved of one of its most worthy members in the person of Mr. Kenneth Urquhart.
A Moral Lecture to Dishonest Divines.
A Moral Lecture to Dishonest Divines.—Mr. Andrew Lang, the eminent litterateur, writing in Longman’s Magazine on that new product of the “Higher Criticism,” the Encyclopædia Biblica, delivers himself thus concerning the freethinking clergyman who has signed a definite creed:—”He is under certain obligations—in honour, if not in law—to uphold, or certainly not to attack, a given set of beliefs. If he holds none of them, but still preaches them, that is between himself and his conscience. If his conscience does not tell him that he is a sneak, a humbug, and a hypocrite, he will be so much the happier. If he chooses to have, in one sense, the courage of his opinions and other people’s opinions, and to publish ideas which leave the religion he professes with no more historical basis than the tale of Troy, nobody will interfere with him. Nobody will deprive him of his bishopric. Still, his conduct is amazing to the lay mind. To that unsophisticated intellect it seems that such a man has a plain course before him. He should send in his papers. After that he would be free to invent any theories, however absurd, and to promulgate any mythological hypotheses, however antiquated and obsolete. How these things can be done with honour, while a man wears the uniform of any Christian sect, is a mystery to the laity.”