IRELAND.
The Millennium, which was to dawn with the establishment of the Irish Provisional Government, says the Catholic, has failed to appear. Instead, a black night of tragedy over-spreads the land. Life and property are nowhere secure; crime of almost every description stalks abroad at noonday. The Spectator, April 8th, says:—”Look at the state of anarchy in the South and the predatory instincts that have been let loose! Take, for example, the recent case where a family was massacred, including two girls, one deliberately killed and the other dangerously wounded, not for any alleged political reason, but because the father was in possession of land which stronger people desired to take from him. Look at the way in which the Irish Republican Army held its Convention in Dublin, in direct defiance of the Provisional Government! Look at the wrecking of the Freeman’s Journal! Look at the state of Donegal! Look at the seizure of the Admiralty vessel laden with arms off Queens-town! Look at a dozen other acts of political brigandage perpetrated against the Provisional Government in the South! Look at the way in which the Provisional Government has been hampered by provocative acts, on the part of the I.R.A., along the Northern Boundary! Finally, look at what has happened and is happening in Belfast!” Mr. Winston Churchill, once a believer in the Millennium like our ever sanguine Prime Minister, is now in a more chastened mood. The best comfort he can offer his party now is that it is yet too soon to despair. Perhaps? Many, however, disagree, men too who know Ireland better than he.
False Charity.
A recent paragraph in the Oban Times recorded the death of Monsignor Mackintosh, the Roman Catholic incumbent of St. Mary’s, Fort-William. In all the churches in Fort-William, irrespective of creed, it was stated, sympathetic and appreciative references were made to the deceased. The Rev. W. Macleod, U.F. Church, Fort-William, is reported as saying:—”As Protestants, we must be careful not to make the territory of Christ’s Kingdom too narrow. But, however this may be, we cannot withhold our profound esteem from one so earnest in using his gifts for the highest service, or our sympathy from his bereaved relatives and Church.” This is a fair specimen of the false charity so prevalent in our time. We have utterly failed to understand our Bible and the soul-ruining tenets of the Church of Rome if any of her priests in the exercise of their so-called priestly functions are using their gifts for the highest service.
The Decline of the Cinema.
To our readers it will be no sad news to learn that the cinema business is in jeopardy. A cry is going up from those who put their money in the devil’s latest snare that is farcical in the extreme. They are posing as men whose high patriotism drew money from their pockets to build these palaces of questionable pleasure lest the depressing effect of the War would be too much for the nerves of the British people. There are not wanting signs that the devil will not be able to use the cinema much longer, but we can rest assured he is busy preparing for his next campaign, and whatever it may be he will have a large following from a people who proclaim that they are lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God.
Hymns.
The larger Presbyterian denominations are troubled with the vexed question of the revision of the Church Hymnary, which has served them for about twenty-five years. A writer in The Scotsman gives reasons why this revision should be undertaken, and remarks that “even in England there has been a reaction in favour of the grand old tradition of Reformation and earlier and later psalmody that had fallen into neglect and disuse.” One of the vices of the music of the Church Hymnary, it is pointed out, is its unsuitability for congregational singing; it is a book for choirs. Carnegie organs, it is further affirmed, have not wrought the desired reformation. The men who were to bring about an improved service in the house of God were told these things long ago, and it is something, after so long a time, to know that the innovators themselves are beginning to see a little of their own folly. Since they wish a change, we trust they will have courage to go back to the good old Reformation principle in these matters.
The Turks at their Old Work.
The House of Commons listened with feelings of horror to a recital of the atrocities perpetrated by the Turks on Greeks and Armenians in Asia Minor. The story of these atrocities would touch the hardest heart, and it is to be hoped that the nations of Europe will deal in a drastic way with a nation that permits such unheard-of cruelty. The Turks have a long, bad record and impunity from punishment through the jealousy of the Great Powers, which has emboldened them to continue their diabolical work. The sentence of God on the oppressor and the murderer is in no uncertain terms, and vengeance belongs to Him.