THE following Protest has been forwarded by the Clerk of the Southern Presbytery to the Prime Minister, Mr. A. J. Balfour, and others in Parliament. A copy has also been sent to the Secretary of State for Scotland for presentation to His Majesty King George V. :—
“The Southern Presbytery of the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland strongly protests against the weak-kneed policy followed by our Protestant Houses of Parliament towards Roman Catholic measures, a policy instigated by Roman Catholic members of Parliament, egged on by Jesuits at the Vatican and in Great Britain and Ireland. The Presbytery calls attention to the fact that it is the real aim of these parties to break down our Protestant Constitution and to set up on its ruins the Pope’s temporal power, and humbly offers the following reasons, among many others, why the Protestant Constitution should be safeguarded at the present time, and the laws still on the Statute Book of this realm, should be put in force against the Jesuits who are traitors to our Throne:
(1) Our forefathers found it absolutely necessary, after suffering decades of persecution and bloodshed for truth and conscience sake, owing to Roman Catholic treachery against our Protestant principles, Throne, and Civil and Religious Liberties, to frame in 1689 the Coronation Oath in such well-defined terms as that no Roman Catholic in disguise (as was the case with Charles II.) could ever ascend the Throne of this nation. On account of the above facts, this Presbytery protests against the weakening by one word of the said safeguard of our national Protestantism.
(2) Roman Catholics enjoy many civil and religious liberties under our Protestant Constitution, both at home and in our colonies, which they do not possess under any purely Roman Catholic Government in the world. Therefore, it is in the interest of the Roman Catholic people (though probably not of the Roman Catholic hierarchy) that the Throne of this Realm should remain Protestant. Further, every movement in the direction of weakening our Protestantism tends to set Roman Catholics and Protestants at greater personal variance with one another. It encourages the one party to lawlessness and riot against freedom of speech to Protestants, while they claim unbounded freedom for themselves in word and action, and it causes the other to employ vehemence of speech and effort in defence of that which it is their constitutional right to enjoy. The Government should bear in mind that they are, for the time being, not the lords of the people but their servants, and that they act unrighteously when they make any change in the Constitution without a mandate from the nation.
(3) The Roman Catholic Church claims absolute temporal and spiritual authority over sovereigns and nations. She showed this in the past by exterminating all who would dare to use the reason which God bestowed upon men, either in things civil or religious. Her history has been written in the blood of men, women, and children, both on the continent of Europe and in our own country. She claims to be always the same, and these intolerant and persecuting principles are taught her young men in her schools and colleges to-day. Should she get the supremacy again, Protestants would be put to death for truth and conscience sake. As Roman Catholic countries have come to recognise the intolerant interference and cruelty of their religious authorities, they have everywhere forbidden priests and nuns to teach in the schools, and they have set up national schools taught by lay teachers. Our nation would do well to take warning from this. Jesuits have everywhere been found to teach the young to be traitors to the State.
(4) Another reason why our Protestant Constitution should not be tampered with, is, that the Jesuits are well known to be putting forth their utmost efforts to destroy Great Britain. They are instigating Germany against us, in order to accomplish this end, and, should Ireland be given Home Rule, which is there equivalent to Rome Rule, Germany would be invited to land her armies in our very midst. We should then have to fight against Germany, and Roman Catholics at home, both in front and flank. This Presbytery consequently feels it to be its duty to raise its protest against the present hypocritical cry on the part of Papists against our few remaining Protestant safeguards, and against the infatuated concessions in contemplation by our Government.
(5) All the honour and greatness we possess as a nation have been the fruits of our Protestantism.
The Word of God, which is the only religion of Protestants, by its moral and spiritual truth, attended with the Spirit’s power, has saved this country from the superstition, ignorance, and physical and mental slavery under which we were held for many centuries, and has raised us to a position of eminence among the nations of the earth. Are we now going back again to the bondage from which we were so mercifully saved by the Lord? God forbid. This Court humbly warns you not to sell our birthright so ignominiously.
‘Quit ye like men. Be ye steadfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.’
Return to Pagan Practices.
The famous Baptist preacher, Dr. MacLaren, of Manchester, passed from this world on 5th May. He occupied a prominent place as a pulpit orator, but it is neither to this nor to his numerous books that attention is here directed, but to the fact that this professedly Christian minister gave instructions in his will that his body should be cremated. Cremation is a purely pagan custom, and may be quite in accord with pagan, infidel, or agnostic conceptions, but it is repulsive to every well-taught Christian.