The Election and the Sabbath.—We were pleased to see a letter in the Glasgow Herald bearing testimony against the wanton desecration of the Lord’s Day during the election. It would appear that the Royal Exchange was opened for four hours to enable members to obtain the Saturday figures. No doubt there were numberless other ways in which the holy day was desecrated during the recent election, but it is a sad sign of the degeneracy of a city whose proud motto once was: “Let Glasgow flourish by the preaching of the Word.”
A Serious State of Matters.—The Bible League Quarterly for January has the following paragraphs revealing a very serious state of matters:—”Three graduates of Union Theological Seminary have quite recently been admitted and licensed as Christian ministers by the New York Presbytery. . . . ‘Do you believe,’ they were asked, ‘that sin was transmitted to all mankind by the eating of the forbidden fruit by Adam in the Garden of Eden?’ ‘No,’ was the answer given by all three, ‘We interpret that part of the Scriptures as entirely allegorical.’ This in face of such Bible statements as that in Romans v. 12—’By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all sinned.’ ‘Then, you do not believe, literally,’ they were asked, ‘the part of the Scriptures relating to original sin.’ ‘No,’ was the reply, ‘we believe that man began with sin.’ And yet the Bible says, ‘God created man in His own image‘ (Genesis i. 27). Another question was, ‘Do you believe in the Divine birth of Christ?’ ‘We believe that Christ is the only Saviour of mankind,’ was the answer; ‘but we do not accept the literal Scriptural interpretation of His birth.’ ‘Do you believe in the Scriptural narrative of the Resurrection of Christ?’ ‘No,’ was the reply, ‘we believe in his spiritual resurrection, but cannot accept the belief that He rose in the body from the tomb.’ This in face of the solemn assertion of Holy Writ—’If Christ be not raised your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished.’ One of the members of the Presbytery, who spoke against the admission to the ministry of men holding such views, subsequently said: ‘It was a case of the Bible against the man. One or the other had to be thrown out; and the Presbytery of New York threw out the Bible as the infallible guide to faith and practice.'” One of the three candidates, above referred to, was ordained on 7th July,
1909, by the Presbytery which had heard his repudiation of Christian doctrine, with a view to his proceeding to China to engage in missionary work in Shanghai!