Delivered into the hands of “Brutish Men and skilful to destroy.”
These words, in which the Lord threatened Jerusalem of old, naturally rise to the mind in reading the account of Nurse Cavell’s trial and execution. The civilised world has been shocked beyond measure at the calculated bloodthirstiness that sent this heroic woman to her doom. Germany, by her theology and philosophy, was to produce by a system of education supermen who were to be the admiration of the world. But her years of training have only managed to produce “brutish men” whose chief characteristic is that they are “skilful to destroy.” Nurse Cavell’s crime of breach of military law no doubt laid her open to punishment, but to carry out the death sentence for such a crime ought to make the most callous among us pray that God in His mercy may spare us from such inhuman monsters and their diabolical military code.
Memorial Services.
Memorial Services in connection with our gallant dead are the order of the day. Throughout the country many ministers and people who have no desire to humble themselves before God are all eagerness to have these Memorial Services. At these services there is much fulsome flattery, and in many cases soul deceiving oratory, in which the heroism of the soldier is proclaimed to be a sufficient passport into heaven. There is also the other great danger connected with them of introducing prayers for the dead where there is any inclination in that direction. An instance of this is found in the Nurse Cavell Memorial Service in St. Paul’s, where the following words taken from a Liturgy of St. Chrysostom were used: “Give rest to Thy servant with Thy saints where sorrow and pain are no more, neither sighing, but life everlasting.”
A Wandering Star.
Mr. R. J. Campbell, M.A., London, of New Theology fame, has made another move in his variable career. He has resigned the pastorate of the City Temple and returned to the Church of England, whence he originally came. The City Temple is a place of worship conducted on Congregational principles, while, of course, the Church of England is Episcopal—at the opposite extreme in Church government. It is credibly reported that Mr. Campbell has withdrawn his book on the New Theology and renounced its contents. This might speak favourably for him, but the lamentable thing is that, while he has forsaken a kind of Rationalism, he seems to have plunged into Ritualism, or the next thing to rank Popery. He has been recently writing articles for a “Sunday” paper—a sad comment on the place the Lord’s Day has in his creed—and in these articles he has advocated the practice of prayers for the dead. The subject is introduced in connection with the War. He recommends such prayers as helpful to the departed, and suggests that influences will come from the departed to benefit the living. We should not be surprised though Mr. Campbell was making the Church of England his halfway house on a journey to the Church of Rome. Did he not suggest some time ago that there should be a conference of representatives of all the denominations of Christendom, with the Pope as president, to deliberate as to how to end the War? This circumstance, along with others, appears to prove that Mr. R. J. Campbell, with all his gifts, is a poor victim of “strong delusion,” which, if mercy prevent not, will prove his utter undoing for ever.
A Converted Brahmin’s Testimony.
The following testimony is of much interest: “Before the cock crows twice, thou shalt deny Me thrice.” It is said that Simon Peter, after his restoration to the Apostleship, always remembered his denying Christ whenever the cock crew in the morning. So whenever the clock strikes four in the morning, I remember my bowing down to dumb idols, and paying them the honour and worship due to the One Living God. For at 4 a.m., before my conversion to Christianity, I got up, and together with 40 or 50 boys of my age in the village, we hurried to the Hindu temple, and immersed ourselves in the temple tank, preparatory to our appearance in the presence of the deity. This bodily cleansing is, of course, a symbol of the inward cleanliness which every worshipper should possess when he appears before the Holy One. The temple doors are open at 3 a.m., and we boys rushed into the holy place in the temple of worship. Innumerable lamps, with one in the centre with seven candlesticks, burn all day and night. Numerous bells are attached to the roofing, and as the god is supposed to be deaf, because of old age, the worshipper rings the bells, wakes the god up, and asks him to hear the supplication. ‘He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.’ One hundred and one times in the morning I prostrated myself before the idol, repeating at the same time prayers in Sanskrit, the meaning of which I did not know. Even at my home I washed a number of gods and goddesses, dressed and fed them, put flowers on them and worshipped them.
“Subsequent to my conversion, I got up at 4 a.m. as before, and now I sing songs to Jesus Christ in three languages. I then pray to the Living God and read His Holy word. Now look at that picture and this. I thank and do heartily praise God, my Saviour, for leading me from heathen darkness to the great light of the Gospel. When I was a Brahmin lad I never had the consciousness of sin. No Brahmin will acknowledge that he is a sinner, as he believes that he is the mediator between God and man. Now I realise my sins, and I repeat the 51st Psalm, the most beautiful Psalm in the whole Bible, every morning from the bottom of my heart. God helping me by His Holy Spirit, I desire to live always ‘Nearer, my God, to Thee, nearer to Thee, even though it be a cross, that raiseth me.'”