An American Divine on the New Catechism.—”I have read the Synod’s deliverance on the New Catechism with substantial accord. I have seen the Catechism, and feel, with your Synod, that it is an exceedingly defective document, and if it ever takes the place of the Shorter Catechism in your schools your staff will be broken. There is nothing in Catechetical literature which equals the Shorter Catechism in crisp exactness of definition, and little which equals it in faithfulness, whether in doctrinal or in ethical instruction. It will be a sad day for Scotland when it is supplanted by such a document as this New Catechism, which I am not able to admire at all.”—Dr. B. B. WARFIELD, Princeton, in a letter to one of our Ministers.
Secular Education.—Owing to the difficulty in finding a solution to religious education in England there is a strong agitation that the State should give no religious education to the young. We trust this atheistic solution will fail meantime. We quote the following from the Scotsman, which shows the trend of events:—”The Secular Education League, which recently came into existence in London, has already a membership of nearly a thousand. It intends to begin a campaign in November against the teaching of religion in elementary schools, either at the public expense or by means of the public machinery. The League neither professes nor entertains any hostility to religion, but regards it as a personal and private matter, which ought not to come under the control of the State, as the religious controversy has been a serious hindrance to national education in England. Several members of Parliament, and the Rev. R. J. Campbell and the Rev. Stewart Headlam, have promised to speak at the opening meeting in London in November.”
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The Failure of the Higher Criticism.—In a notice of Colonel Conder’s recent work, “Critics and the Law,” which appeared in the September number of the Contemporary Review, the reviewer thus refers to the Higher Criticism:—”The comparative failure of what is known as the Higher Biblical Criticism to maintain its position is common knowledge at the present time. In the days of Bishop Colenso, thinking men were almost persuaded to tremble in the matter of the very foundations of their faith. Everything seemed to be slipping away, and the impregnable rock of Holy Scripture itself was crumbling. To-day things are in a very different position. The reviewer cannot but notice the signs of a vigorous reaction. The Higher Critics of the nineteenth century, it is now said, are among the many false prophets who have troubled the world.”
China’s effort to crush the Opium Traffic.—8th August was the date fixed by the Viceroy Tuan-fang for the strict enforcement of the edict abolishing the use of opium and the closure of all opium dens throughout Kiang-su. The same day saw the closing of the opium dens in Canton. A telegram from Hong Kong, dated 9th August, says: “All the opium dens in Canton have been closed without disturbance. There are rejoicings throughout the city, which is decorated. Processions and bands are parading the streets.” News from Pekin says that information has reached the Lu-chun-pu that some soldiers are paying no attention to the regulation issued last November that all teachers, scholars, soldiers, and sailors of all ranks were to be allowed three months wherein entirely to relinquish the opium habit. Instructions have therefore been issued to the effect that any officer or man found smoking will at once be beheaded.
Plague in India.—When we read of the ravages of famine and pestilence in other lands, we, living in this more favoured land, can scarcely realise how indebted we are to the Most High in preserving us from the “pestilence that walketh” in darkness. A writer in Blackwood’s Magazine for October quotes figures which reveal how desolating the plague must be in the stricken provinces of India. The deaths since 1896 amount to five millions. “It is hard to conceive,” says the writer, “every soul in Scotland dying from one fell disease in ten years, but the population of Scotland is 528,000 less than 5,000,000. It is appalling to think that during eleven years the number of victims of plague in India exceeds 5¼ millions, but the mind staggers when we learn that of the 5¼ millions, 4½ millions died during the last five years and four months. The population of London is 4,536,541. What would be our thoughts if 4,500,000 deaths occurred in London in five years, and the vast city was left with 36,000 inhabitants.”
Progress of the Discussion on the Deceased Wife’s Sister’s Marriage Act.—From the utterances of public men, both in the Church of England and the Church of Scotland, it is evident that some trouble may arise owing to the antagonism that is believed to exist between the law of the Church and the law of the land. In a recent article in the Contemporary Review this antagonism, as far as the Church of England is concerned, is said to be non-existent. The Bishops of London and Worcester have declared themselves strongly against the new Act, the former advising his clergy to refuse their churches for the solemnization of marriages under it. The Bishops of Carlisle and Hereford, while disapproving of these marriages, add that they do not find anything against them in the Word of God. In a recent issue of the Scottish Review, Prof. Herkless, of St. Andrews, holds that if the formula which has been sent down for consideration to the Presbyteries of the Church of Scotland be passed, “the minister will still be forced to adhere to the Confession’s condemnation of a marriage with a deceased wife’s sister.” He argues strongly for a declaration from his Church allowing marriages under the new statute. The same trend of feeling was seen by the carrying of a motion in the Glasgow Presbytery, which had in view the yielding of obedience to the new law until the Committee which had been appointed to inquire into the matter, brought in their report. Prof. Cooper appealed against this finding to the Synod of Glasgow and Ayr, which met at Glasgow on the 8th October. The Synod rightly found the Presbytery’s motion incompetent, but an appeal is to be made to the Assembly in the interests of the Presbytery.
The Reformation Monument in Geneva.—Professor Lucien Gautier, D.D., Ph.D., Geneva, writing in the Quarterly Register of the Reformed Churches holding the Presbyterian System, says in regard to the above:—”In 1909 the Reformed Churches will commemorate ‘throughout the world’ the 400th birthday of John Calvin. It is natural that a central commemoration should take place somewhere, and no other city can have a claim to it but Geneva, where God brought Calvin and kept him for nearly thirty years, on a soil which He had Himself prepared for the marvellous labour and success of His servant. The foundation stone will then be laid of a Monument of the Reformation, whose chief feature will be the statues of Calvin and Calvin’s co-operators and disciples, like Farel, Beza and Knox, in association with figures representative of the different countries where Calvinism was a shaping influence. Geneva is a very small republic, with scarcely more than 65,000 Protestant inhabitants, including the children, the poor, and also too many indifferent and unbelievers, whereas our Roman Catholic fellow-citizens number over 70,000. In a few months we have collected here, without using any artificial method (bazaars, etc.), subscriptions amounting to 160,000 francs or £6,400, and we hope to find more. Thus, if our monument were to be simply a modest ‘Geneva monument,’ we might erect it. But we want something else, something better and greater; we want a universal testimony from the Reformed Christians of all nations and of all languages to the heroes of our Reformation, and to the principles they have victoriously proclaimed.”