Proposed Publication of another MS. of Thomas Boston.—The Rev. George D. Low, M.A., 65 Morningside Drive, Edinburgh, proposes to publish the MS. Passages of my Life, by the Rev. Thomas Boston, Ettrick, provided 300 subscribers come forward. The price of the book to subscribers is 7/6 net. Last spring Mr. Low published Boston’s General Account of My Life, in a handsome volume with invaluable notes. These were the two MSS. used by Boston’s grandson, Rev. Michael Boston, Falkirk, in preparing the well known Memoirs of his grandfather. These Memoirs are one of the classics of Scottish religious literature, and it is to be hoped Mr. Low will get sufficient subscribers to encourage him to proceed with the publication of the book.
The Language of the Uncircumcised.—Now and again light is thrown on the woful condition of things existing in our midst. The other week, in reading the Glasgow Herald, we came across an account of a meeting of the Lanark School Board. Our attention was at once arrested by a speech delivered by a Mr. Graham, reported to be an elder of the United Free Church. This gentleman’s soul was moved to its depths by the suggestion that religious teaching should be given in the schools under the Lanark School Board. Mr. Graham seconded the exclusion of Bible teaching from these schools, saying that he would profoundly thank God to-morrow if religious teaching was effaced from every school as it was taught at present. He would ask Mr. Mackintosh what was taught in the schools at the present time, as he said they were being taught. Was it the Old Testament lesson that was being taught? If so, was that perfectly satisfactory to him? He told them that every child who learned the story of the Creation from the Old Testament had sooner or later to unlearn it. If it was the New Testament, was it the spirit of Christ that was being taught? At the present minute religious life was being remade, and they were not at the present time in Lanark getting the teaching as laid down by Christ. He knew a minister in Lanark who was of opinion that the Shorter Catechism was not worth a rap, and why should this be given to the children?
The English Jews.—The Jewish community in England are at present in the toils of what appears to be a very serious controversy. It would appear that an advanced section, consisting largely of Jewish scholars out of sympathy with the orthodox tenets of Judaism, formed an association under the name of the Jewish Religious Union. It has been very active, and at length the Chief Rabbi, Dr. Adler, spoke out strongly against it. The pages of the Jewish Chronicle for some time back have been largely devoted to reporting every fresh development. That the controversy has
shaken the community to its depths cannot be denied, but whether it is a movement towards Christianity is another question. True it is that Mr. Claude Montefiore, one of the ablest leaders of the new movement, gives Jesus of Nazareth the place of a prophet, which is no higher than Unitarianism, and as far as we can gather from his lectures, his teaching is simply a restatement of Ebionitism. But it must be borne in mind that this for a Jew is a step in the upward direction, for to them the Blessed and Holy One of God was a deceiver. The worst feature of the new movement is that it appears to be imbued with strongly naturalistic tendencies. This is seen in its ready acceptance of the higher critical theories of the Old Testament. We laid down the Jewish Chronicle with the sad thought that the veil is still upon their heart, but gladdened with the hope that when Israel would return to the Lord the veil would be taken away, and that this would mean life from the dead to the Gentile nations.
The Jewish Religious Union.—As a specimen of what the teaching of the new movement is we give the following from the Jewish Chronicle, which will show how far away from Christianity the new movement is. It is a call for prayer that we sinners of the Gentiles should plead with the Lord that He might take away the veil from their hearts. “The discussion” in the Jewish Chronicle “largely turns on the question whether the final authority of religion for the Jews rests in the Torah itself as a divine revelation to the Jewish consciousness, or whether it is to be found within each individual conscience. Dr. Adler maintains the one view, and Mr. Montefiore the other. Now, the Chief Rabbi’s view is, it goes without saying, unquestionably Jewish; Mr. Montefiore’s, we submit, is essentially the standpoint of Theism and Unitarianism. ‘We recognise,’ says Mr. Montefiore, and he now unreservedly reiterates the statement, ‘no binding outside authority between us and God, whether in a man or in a book, whether in a church or in a code, whether in a tradition or in a ritual.’ Mr. Voysey, as a Theist, would say exactly the same thing. As a Unitarian, Dr. Martineau is at the same standpoint, when he labours to show that ‘the seat of authority’ is in the individual conscience, which is sufficiently God-illuminated to be independent of Book and Church. Mr. Montefiore is impelled to take up a similar position by his acceptance of the conclusions of the Higher Critics that the Pentateuchal records belong for the most part to a later age than that of Moses. ‘Either we must reject the new conclusions or we must change the old attitude.’ ‘This is a fundamental difficulty,’ adds Mr. Montefiore, ‘and this the sermon (by Dr. Adler) has altogether ignored. Yet it is to us perhaps the most serious of all the problems connected with the Bible and its authority at the present day.’”
Protestant Charity and Romish Imposition.—Many things happen in Ireland (says Mr. Connellan in his Protestant
paper, The Catholic) which some Irishmen and a great many Irishmen find it difficult to understand. Take the collection made in all the Dublin Protestant Churches on “Hospital Sunday.” I have before me the Belfast News-Letter of 15th November, in which I find the following interesting paragraph: “The Hospital collection, which was founded in 1874, yields an average income exceeding £3,000 a year, the amount last year being £3,743, and the total in the thirty years since its foundation, £138,030. The Earl of Meath is president, and Lord Ardilaun is vice-president of the fund. It is remarkable, that while the Roman Catholic population derive three-fourths of the benefits of the hospitals, there is no collection in the Roman Catholic chapels for the fund.” This is certainly remarkable, but it is perhaps more remarkable that the committee should persevere, after an experience of thirty years, in distributing the money to Roman Catholic hospitals, managed by priests and nuns.