BY REV. M. MORRISON, LOCHINVER.
IN dealing with this subject there is little, if anything, to say of a cheering and encouraging nature. This country which in the past occupied the leading place among the nations of the world in the sphere of Religion and Morals, is proceeding with quickened pace in a downward course. While here and there a few are found who, deeply conscious of abounding iniquity and declensions from former attainments, feel pained and anxious, the bulk of the people remain stoically indifferent, and in fact, appear to be unconcernedly carried into the retrograde current of the times.
Religion, if estimated by the conduct and profession of those who maintain a nominal connection with it, is a thing which seems to us rather foreign to the religion of the Bible, and to its spirit and character as exemplified by the life of the godly in the past. The religion of the ordinary church-goer, based as it is on modern and unscriptural views, has degenerated into lifeless formalism and ceremonialism. The chill and blight which this kind of religion brings with it have fallen with sweeping energy upon the populace. The result is spiritual deadness, worldly-mindedness, and irreligious spirit are manifest everywhere. We are, of course, considering the religious outlook in general and not in particular. God’s claims upon the mind and heart of a nation, as well as upon that of the individual conscience, are as unchanging and imperative as ever.
In days gone by in Scotland, when God’s Word was preached in its purity and power through the land, the people flocked to hear it, but the reverse state of things has begun to exist. Churches, in town and country, are being emptied through the baneful influences of the rationalist movement, which swept like a flood over the Divinity Halls, the pulpit, and the pew. This sapped the hold which the faith once delivered unto the saints had on the minds of the people. All the proposals, articles, and acts, which have been propounded and passed by the larger Presbyterian Churches since over three decades, with a view to incorporating Unions were coloured by this rationalistic movement—disbelief in the leading foundation truths of the Scriptures. To-day they are reaping in their empty churches the poisonous seed they have sown; and until there is a return with repentance to these truths they have forsaken we need not look for a blessing, and the pouring of the Spirit from on high. In brief it may be said with truth that Great Britain is reaping the fruit of German rationalism, French Atheism, and Popish Idolatory, imported into its midst on an ever-increasing scale. The picture which might be drawn in this respect is sombre in the extreme. The true Church of Christ would welcome with feelings of undisguised delight streaks of heavenly light breaking through prevailing gloom, and bringing in its wake a revival and reformation of a nature similar to what was experienced in the past history of the Church of God—not such as we hear of in these days, when any extravagant excitement will pass as a revival. We do not, of course, refer to individual cases in whose experience the word of God is as a hammer breaking the rocks in pieces, and the Holy Spirit making an effectual application of the Word to their consciences.
The late War had by no means the salutary effect upon the lives of the people which many prayed and hoped it would have. On the contrary, it gave an enormous impetus to irreligion and immorality in some of its worst forms throughout the length and breadth of the land, and its corrupting influences are still pulsating through many fibres of the national life.
The Lord’s Day as a day of rest and divine worship, is surrendered to the forces of moral and religious revolution—forces which are the avowed enemies of God and man’s spiritual well-being. The lust for gold and the insatiable craving for recreation and amusement, so characteristic of the age in which we live, are making serious and increasing encroachments upon the sanctity of the Lord’s Day, and which will soon be bartered away to give place to what is fashionably called the “Continental Sunday.” Even the Highlands of Scotland, which used to have a pre-eminent place for its reverence for, and observance of, the Sabbath, is following the example of the Southerner, and is like Judah of old, whose imitating of her apostatising elder sister, Samaria, is so forcibly, and sometimes ironically, depicted by the prophet. The Northern towns prove this, in that the alien can open his trading shop on the Sabbath without fear and in defiance of the magistrate and the sentiments of a Protestant and Presbyterian community. Travelling and sports are very largely patronised on the Lord’s Day. We cannot help thinking that the constant rumbling of upheavals and commotions heard throughout the whole fabric of society is in part Divine punishments sent for the widespread disregard of the claims of Heaven. The earth is loaded with human guilt before the Lord, and for this, one way or another, and in His own time, He shall be avenged on the transgressor.
The honourable practice of family worship in Protestant Britain, and especially in Scotland, which obtained in former times when true religion flourished, is discontinued, and the morning and evening sacrifice offered at the family altar is a thing of the past. Those among whom it is practised and acknowledged to any considerable extent are those in the South or North who still cleave to the good old ways, and are accustomed to listen to faithful and evangelical preaching. This sad omission in the family and dereliction of solemn duty on the part of parents for which they shall yet be held accountable to God, has borne abundant fruit in the ignorance of the truth, disobedience to parents, impatience of moral restraints, revolt against authority, coarseness of feeling and conduct, insensateness of mind and heart prevalent among the rising generation. This is sadly ominous for the future. With regard to our own young people, we should say, with a humbling sense before the Lord amid the manifold provocations offered, their life and character seem more or less influenced by faithful declaration of the Word from Sabbath to Sabbath. There are exceptions, such as some who come under the blight of modernism.
The influences of war conditions have told, sad to say, on some of our young men and women as on others, which is evidenced in the fact that they have turned their ear away from the truth, and live as they please on Sabbath as on week-day.
The poisonous doctrine of Socialism is gaining ground stealthily and openly among different classes of society, and the unwary and ignorant are an easy prey to the venomous atheism and class hatred propaganda of its champions. They are multiplying what are called “Proletarian Sunday Schools,” in which the young are taught that there is no God and no Saviour, and that, in effect, man is a God to himself. What this will result in eventually to this country and its people and time-honoured institutions we shrink from contemplating. The zeal with which this poison is spread would be commendable in a far more worthy cause.
The morals of a nation or of a distinct community are in keeping with its religious condition. The former is largely dependent on the latter, not the latter on the former. It is religion, whatever kind it is, that determines the moral view entertained by its subject.
The Ten Commandments, which are for ever obligatory on every rational being favoured with their possession, have ceased to be subjects of instruction to the people. Their binding and imperative demands on the conscience, on pain of even disastrous consequences in this life itself, are not declared from the pulpits of this country. The result is laxity and looseness in views and conduct in a repulsive degree. The home-life of the present generation is not of a kind which fosters, much less positively inculcates, the healthy principles and rules embedded in the moral law. Therefore the moral tone and conscience is at a low ebb. The spiritual aspect of life is buried out of sight, and the sensations of the carnal mind must get free exercise and full gratification, as therein only life at its best can be lived and felt. The means which the devil has devised are ample and suitable. The theatre, the picture-house, the music-halls, and the dancing saloons; yea, and the football grounds, etc., are multiplied for filthy lucre by designing men to meet the ever-growing demands made by the populace. Even the Lord’s Day, as if, forsooth, the six days of the week were not sufficient, is invaded to gratify the morbid sensuality and carnal taste of fallen man. Novels and trashy stuff are read by old and young with insatiable avidity, and the supply is keeping pace with the demand and vice versa. This light and sensational literature is widely read in the home, on holiday, and recreation rounds, while travelling hither and thither on motor, train, and steamer. Swearing, lying, cheating, indecent language, and questionable game-playing are on the increase instead of otherwise. We could wish from our inmost heart that a more consoling and cheering report could be given, but facts cannot be suppressed.
Intemperance, we are glad to note, is on the decline in many places, largely, we believe, through the state of widespread unemployment, which we pray and hope may soon come to an end, and as a result of the abolition of a goodly number of licences North and South under the operation of the Scottish Temperance Act, 1913.
We feel Ireland cannot be left outside our purview. The unhappy state of that country can only be solved and rectified by the overthrow of Priestcraft—a contingency which we regard, as far as we can see, as rather remote—and also by the full and free declaration of the Word of God throughout its borders. Jesuitical intrigue and Priestdom are the primary causes of the orgies of crime, murder, and plunder which are now the ordinary factors in the common life of its inhabitants. We in Scotland should feel profoundly grateful to the Most High for the blessed fruits which Protestant liberty and Gospel ordinances have vouchsafed to us. Life is considered sacred as yet and right to property secure, all which is due to the teaching of the Word of God in the past. Let us see to it that, in dependence on God’s grace, we shall not allow these fruits, and especially the causes, to be filched away from us at whatsoever cost. The so-called Peace Treaty made with that country is only a part and parcel of a religio-political independence and separation which is the absolute minimum demand of the Jesuits. Anyone who can use his reason and intelligence profitably can see this is the ultimate goal. The Church of Rome is out to bargain for nothing less, because her ultimate aim is dependent on total separation between Great Britain and Ireland. Such a consummation so devoutly wished for by them would constitute a mighty bulwark, because they would be free to form and enter into alliance with other ill-disposed and papal countries for the overthrow of Protestantism in Great Britain, and to regain the ascendancy of the Pope’s temporal power over the nations. The present Pope is one of the most capable and most far-seeing diplomats that was ever proclaimed a Sovereign Pontiff at the Vatican. We have, therefore, grave fears for the future, unless the Lord in His infinite mercy stretches forth His hand to thwart the formidable machinations of evil-designing men. That Church proves herself to be what she has always been, an enemy to truth and righteousness; and human life and orderly civil government which stand in her way, barring the progress of her aspirations, must, whenever possible, be destroyed.