The Navy.
For some time back there has been a great deal said and written about the defences of our country. It is one of the saddest evidences of the instability of professions of national friendship to find that after all the fair speeches made by the German Emperor that this country is driven by the policy of Germany to increase her battleships of the Dreadnought type to maintain what is known as the two-power standard. One ugly feature in connection with the natural anxiety manifested by the nation as to our maritime defences is the total lack of acknowledgment of the God who has given us such a high place among the nations. The very name given to this type of battleship looks like a challenge to Him whose power is infinite, and before whom the stateliest line of battleships are as specks on the ocean.
The Mar-Prelate Tracts.
Those of our readers who have a slight acquaintance with the history of Puritanism will remember that the Martin Mar-Prelate tracts played a very important part in the controversies of the day. These tracts rose above the ordinary level of polemical literature. The wit and literary style drove home many a truth where a blunter weapon would have failed. The authorship was kept a profound secret, and notwithstanding the research which is a feature of modern historical study, the authorship is still a secret. In a work recently published under the title of An Historical Introduction to the Mar-Prelate Tracts, the question is ably discussed, and much light thrown on an interesting period of the religious history of England. John Penry, on a false charge, was put to death for his alleged complicity in these tracts which said such unfeeling things about the bishops. Others were tortured, but the secret was kept. The men engaged in the controversy regarded it as a matter of life and death.
The President of the Board of Education and the Bible in the English Schools.
Mr. Runciman, M.P., recently addressing a political meeting said :—”View the secular system as they pleased, define it as they pleased, it would not be a solution, and he said it would not advance the position an inch at the present time. Furthermore, he believed that the solution would not satisfy the genius of the British people, and any Government that attempted, by the secular solution, or otherwise, to turn the Bible out of our schools would be worthy of a first-rate thrashing at the polls.” It gives us pleasure to chronicle these statements of the responsible head of the English Education Department.