PROBABLY that huge popular ferment known as Glasgow Fair, never, even in its least eventful years, finishes without some record of lost lives and broken hearts, but this year its calendar of accidents is black indeed. A train load of trippers who left the Isle of Man per steamer at midnight on Sabbath had safely accomplished the journey by sea and land, and were, on Monday morning, July 27th, within a minute of being at the successful close of their excursion when, through some failure of the machinery, or careless management of the driver, the train dashed at full speed against the buffers of the terminus in St. Enoch Station, Glasgow. A sickening crash of railway plant ensued, and in the shock over a dozen passengers were crushed to death and a score or so dangerously injured. At the time we write the tale of death numbers 15 persons. The newspapers are giving vent to the public sorrow and sympathy felt on such an occasion, and we mingle our condolences with theirs. We are constrained, however, to extend our view a little deeper than a mere inquiry into the immediate causes of the accident. We would reverently acknowledge the hand of God in the matter, and consider whether the painful accident of that Monday has not a voice. This train load of excursionists was a company of Sabbath breakers. Their voyage from the Isle of Man at midnight on Sabbath involved a wholesale course of violation of the Lord’s Day. Such abuse of the sacred day as they were guilty of is by the majority of persons not now looked upon as a sin at all, but the mind of the God of Heaven, publicly expressed in His moral law, is to a different effect, and looking fairly at the whole course of His dealings with Sabbath-breaking men and nations from the beginning, we cannot view the Tay Bridge tragedy on December 28, 1879, or the St. Enoch Station horror on July 27th, 1903, as ought else than the wrath of God revealed from Heaven against this special form of unrighteousness. It is well known that the Isle of Man holiday programme is characterised by much dancing and jollity. The contrast between the beginning and the ending of such a holiday is appalling to think of.
The Vatican Bible Society.—The Society of St. Jerome in Rome has issued 130,000 copies of the Gospels and the Acts. It is now issuing an edition of the Gospel according to Matthew, with notes and a map and illustrations, for one halfpenny. Grave doubts have been expressed in some quarters whether the New Testament was really being circulated in accordance with the published numbers, and whether the whole was not a Jesuit trick to juggle the Protestants; but Professor Luzzi says the figures are genuine, though the translations are not perfect, and the notes, as might be expected, are of a Papal tone.