The British Government honouring Rome.—The following questions have been asked and answers given to them in the House of Commons. It will be seen that they leave the matter in a very unsatisfactory state:—Mr. King asked whether, on the occasion of the International Eucharistic Congress, to take place in Malta from April 24 to 27, a British naval guard is to line the route in honour of the procession; and whether, in order to prevent an insincere religious observance, he will give orders that no non-Catholic sailor need form part of the guard, and that it is in no case incumbent upon any sailor to salute any person or symbol in the procession. Dr. Macnamara: I would refer my hon. friend to the answer given on March 17 by my right hon. friend the Secretary of State for War to a similar question by the hon. Member for Wandsworth. Mr. King asked whether instructions have been
given for a vessel of His Majesty’s Navy to carry the Papal Legate to Malta for the approaching Eucharistic Congress; if so, what will be the cost of the voyage; whether the Papal Nuncio will also return on a warship; and whether it is intended that ecclesiastics of other faiths will be similarly honoured on ceremonial occasions? Dr. Macnamara: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative; to the second part, there will be a small expenditure of coal; to the third part, certainly, if the circumstances are similar. Mr. King: Before arrangements are made for the return voyage, will the Italian Government be approached to see whether they will co-operate by arranging that one of their vessels shall take this gentleman home? Dr. Macnamara: It is simply an act of courtesy to a distinguished visitor. Mr. King: Would they not like to do it? In reading these answers by Dr. Macnamara, one could scarcely believe that the responsible officials of His Majesty’s Government have been left so much to themselves as to offer a warship to the Papist Legate who is to preside at the God-dishonouring spectacle so closely associated with the Eucharistic Congress.
The American President on Bible Reading.—The following utterance, says the Quarterly Record of the National Bible Society of Scotland, comes with peculiar force from Dr. Woodrow Wilson, the new President of the United States:—”I am sorry for men who do not read the Bible every day; I wonder why they deprive themselves of the strength and the pleasure. It is one of the most singular books in the world, for every time you open it some old text that you have read a score of times, suddenly beams with a new meaning. Evidently the mood and the thought of that day, bred by the circumstances that you cannot analyse, has suddenly thrown its light upon that page and upon that passage, and there springs out upon the page to you something that you never saw lie upon it before. There is no other book that I know of, of which this is true; there is no other book that yields its meaning so personally, that seems to fit so intimately to the very spirit that is seeking its guidance. And so, when we teach our children, we do not teach them, I hope, dogmatically. We must not try to make them read the Scriptures as we read it, but merely try to bring them into such contact with the Scripture that it will yield its meaning to their hearts and to their minds. Make it their companion, make it their familiar text-book, and the rest will take care of itself.” We trust President Wilson will find in the pages of God’s word much heavenly wisdom to guide him in his exalted position.
Honouring the Lord’s Day.—An interesting extract from the Church Missionary Review, for December, 1912, concerning the influence of the Rev. Henry Martin is given below. The incident occurred in the very heart of the Sahara desert, fifty years after the death of Mr. Martin, whose work lay in Persia. The Rev. C. E. Oakley said:—”In French Algeria I found some
Arabs who belonged to the oasis of Beni Nizab, who are strict Mohammedans, but who treated me with respect . . . because I never travelled on the Christian Sabbath, or did any kind of work on the Lord’s Day. They had always been taught that observance of the Sabbath was the mark of a religious man, and of the Christian Sabbath of a Christian man. So they constantly refused the name of Christian to the French battalions, because they saw that all days were much the same to them. When they found that I kept one day in seven sacred, they came to me and asked more concerning Christ. . . . A chief of considerable power invited me to visit him in a place far away in the desert of the south. . . . I not only met with a most kind and courteous welcome. . . . He caused a large box to be brought in and opened before my eyes. From this box he took out . . . a book in Persian. . . . I said, “How came this book here? Can you read it?” “No.” “Why, then, do you keep it with all this care?” . . . “My father . . . when he was young and strong . . . went to Persia.” The chief then described how his father met with the Rev. Henry Martin and listened to his teaching, and brought back with him a Persian translation of the New Testament made by Mr. Martin. When the father was dying he said, “My son . . . if ever there come to the Sahara an Englishman declaring that he is the servant of Jesus Christ, mark that man, and if he will not travel on one day in seven, nor work on that day, nor do any such things as he does on other days, be kind to that man, be to him as a brother, for the sake of that Englishman who was a brother to me while I was at Shiraz in Persia.”—The Lord’s Day.
The Putumayo Scandals.—A report has been received from Mr. Mitchell, the British Consul at Iquitos, respecting the Putumayo district and the condition of its native inhabitants. We regret to say that, on the whole, it gives a very unfavourable impression of the treatment of the subject race in that unhappy region. It says that the arrangements of the Government for securing justice have been very inadequate, and it does not hold out much hope of immediate improvement. It dwells upon the extreme difficulty of obtaining exact knowledge about the situation. We take for example the following words: “Whenever we tried to talk privately to the Indians an employee of the Company who knew the language would approach, and the people would immediately cease to be communicative.” That in itself was sufficient to arouse the suspicions of honest and sympathetic inquirers. The report tells us that British interests in the rubber trade have been almost entirely eliminated, and that the trade itself is waning so fast that it is likely to come to an end in the near future. Notwithstanding these facts, it is to be hoped that our Government will continue to exert its undoubted influence on behalf of the oppressed and afflicted people. Mr. Mitchell does not appear to expect much from moral suasion; he says that “fear is the only
lever that will lift the Peruvians into a serious purpose to set the Putumayo in order.”—English Churchman.
Protestantism in the Land of Luther.—The land of Luther is not so largely Protestant as would be thought in the light of history. The 64,926,933 inhabitants of the latest census are divided into 39,991,411 Protestants, 23,821,453 Roman Catholics, 283,946 other Christians, 615,021 Israelites, 2,114 non-Christian worshippers, 205,900 persons of other confessions, 6138 religious belief not stated. Bavaria, Baden, and Alsatia have a majority of Roman Catholics. The number of Jews is slowly decreasing. Since 1871 in Prussia, and since 1890 in the entire German Empire there is noted a stronger increase of Roman Catholics, in part due to their large families of children, as contrasted with the smaller progeny of the well-to-do Protestant, especially in cities. But it is still more due to the large immigration from Catholic countries, such as Italy and Slavonia. The number of conversions of Roman Catholics to the Protestant faith far exceeds the converts from the latter. A leading educator of Germany recently estimated that while about 10,000 Catholics annually become Protestants in Germany, barely 1000 of the latter become Catholics. Since the last census the number of those who profess no religion has increased from 17,203 to 205,900, or twelvefold. This is due in large part to the Socialist propaganda. In Berlin one in 55, in Bremen one in 24, declares himself without any religious affiliation. Roman Catholic Bavaria contains more of such unbelievers than Protestant Saxony.—Missionary Review of the World.