Palestine.
—Sir Herbert Samuel, High Commissioner for Palestine, who is on a visit to London, gave an interesting account of the archaeological research that is being carried on under his régime in Palestine at the annual meeting of the Palestine Exploration Fund at Burlington House on 30th May. The chief work of the fund, he said, in the last season had been the excavation of Asealon, which he had visited. Perhaps the most interesting thing was a cutting which had been made at the edge of a hill, which showed the stratified remains of all the civilisation which had occupied the site. Layer below layer were revealed the relics of modern Arabs, Crusaders, Byzantines, Romans, Philistines, and Canaanites. This cutting of thirty feet summarised the history of thirty centuries. It was a page of history, a section cut through time. Mr. Ronald Storrs, the Governor of Jerusalem, said that the sites in and near Jerusalem were unique in the possibilities of discovery, and new chapters in the history of the ancient world might be opened up at any time. He gave an interesting account of the Pro-Jerusalem Society, which preserves the amenities of the historic city from being ruined by cheap modernisation. The citadel was in process of preservation—not restoration—waste places were being planted with trees, and among the industries started was a factory in which special tiles were being made to cover the ancient Dome of the Rock.
Progress of Roman Catholicism in Scotland.
—In another page we give the statistics given to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland by Rev. Duncan Cameron, minister of Kilsyth. These are sufficiently serious to awaken Scottish Protestants out of their apathy, and we hope the Committee appointed by the Church of Scotland will enlighten the people of Scotland on the menace and progress of Irish Roman Catholicism in Scotland.
First Assembly of the Church of Scotland.
—The meetings of the supreme courts of the larger Presbyterian bodies in Edinburgh suggested to a writer in the Scotsman to write a brief article descriptive of the first General Assembly of the Church of Scotland and the place where it met—Magdalene Chapel, in the Cowgate, Edinburgh. The Assembly met on 20th December, 1560, and sat for a week. It consisted of forty members—”ministers and commissioners of the Particular Kirkes of Scotland,” who were “convened to consult upon these things quilk [which] are to set forward God’s glory and well [welfare] of His Kirk in this Realme” (Buik of the Universal Kirke). The ministers present were few in number, and consisted of John Knox, Christopher Guidman, John Row, David Lindsay, William Harlaw, and William Christieson. This famous Assembly sanctioned the appointment of thirty-five ministers and eight readers, and passed laws which affected the whole course of the history of the Reformed Church in Scotland.
Owing to pressure on our space, obituaries of Mr. Hugh Mac-kay, Dornoch, and Mrs. Shaw, Glenlewin, N.S. Wales, are held over; also, Synod’s Report on Religion and Morals.