Romanism in the Church of England.
The bare-faced effrontery of Romanising clergy in the Church of England is almost incredible. A notable victory for a true-hearted Protestant Churchwarden, Mr W. Charles W. Vincent, has been achieved in getting a faculty to remove the Popish paraphernalia introduced into St Magnus-the-Martyr, London Bridge. The Rector, the Rev. H. J. Fynes Clinton, is a Romaniser of a thorough-going type, and possessed of an astuteness that is quite in keeping with the ethics of the school to which he belongs. Mr Vincent, acting on the faculty received from the Bishop, has removed an alabaster stand for holy water, a tabernacle for the reservation of the sacrament, and the gilded throne used at services of the adoration of the mass and other Popish articles. That such should be found in a professedly Protestant Church is incredible, but the greatest mystery of all is how the Romanising priest is permitted by the Bishop of London to continue his services at the above church.
Almost Incredible.
As a specimen of what is going on in the Church of St Magnus-of-the-Martyr, London Bridge, referred to in the preceding note, we quote the following from the “Churchman’s Magazine,” in connection with a passion play acted there at the end of the year: “Now to the function of the evening. The ‘pre-tended’ sacrifice of the mass commenced, and went through its course with its pretended victim, pretended blood, and all the other pretences associated with it. On the stage a curtain was drawn at varying parts of the service to reveal actors and actresses pretending to be Bible characters. One man pretended to be John the Baptist, another Simeon, another Joseph, another Zacharias, and so on. None of them pretended to be Barabbas. Unless the priest at the altar filled the role. Then there were women pretending to be the Virgin Mary, Elizabeth, Anna, Mary Magdalene, etc. In one or two tableaux, the Lord Jesus Christ as an infant, was pretended by a doll! This doll was kissed, bowed to, adored, and worshipped. At the consecration of the host, curtains were drawn, revealing a man, naked, with a white napkin about his loins, speckled here and there with pretended blood, lying on a cross of wood placed on the floor of the stage. At the elevation of the wafer, the curtains were again drawn aside to reveal the cross raised with the naked man upon it, and pretended blood on his hands and feet where the nails should be. This tableau remained through the “elevation” of wafer and chalice, until the head of the man dropped on his chest, and a rattle of sheet iron pretending the earthquake announced the pretended death. The next tableau revealed the pretended Christ pretending to bless the disciples in the upper room. To the one pretending to be Thomas, the chief actor drew aside his white flimsy garment to show his naked side with a pretended spear thrust. There followed a horrible pretence of the ascension, the calling out of the Church, and, last of all, the culminating blasphemy. In this was shown what pretended to be Heaven, with a Popish altar in the background, and before it, gathered en masse all the actors and actresses who had taken part. The person acting as Christ held a chalice in his hand to give the sacrament to all.”
It seems almost incredible that such a daring travesty of sacred things could take place in this country in the name of religion. At this blasphemous acting the Duke of Newcastle presided, and in his speech said that the company gathered to show their sympathy with the priest and the Church of St Magnus in the persecution they were receiving. He further added that if every child was taught the meaning of the Mass, “England, I think, would be the happier and better country.” To the ducal utterance we add weightier words, uttered by Him who saw clearly through and exposed the shallow sophistries of men:—”If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!”
Glasgow’s Disregard of the Sabbath.
The Corporation of this great city seems determined to persist in its Sabbath-breaking career. Its latest encroachment on the Lord’s Day is the inauguration of its “Safety First Week” on the Sabbath. The Rev. Neil Cameron, writing to one of the Glasgow evening papers, utters the following protest:—”It seems they (the Corporation) are determined to start every new project on the Lord’s Day. For instance, the sub-way was re-opened on that day—the running of tram cars to Canniesburn was started on that day—and now the “No Accident Week” movement (whatever that may mean) is to be inaugurated on that day. If the citizens of Glasgow do not awake, they will lose the indispensable rest of the Lord’s Day, and will have a hand in bringing the curse of God upon the city, by allowing our representatives in the Town Council to turn it into a day for work and pleasure. Let us remember that it is written:—’Six days shalt thou labour and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work’; also, ‘Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things written in the Book of the Law to do them.’ The Lord has not abrogated the Fourth Commandment.”
Irish Republicans and the Roman Catholic Hierarchy.
—At the annual conference of the Irish Republicans in Scotland, held recently in Glasgow, the action of the Roman Catholic hierarchy in Ireland “branding the Irish Republican Army as murderers and robbers, while remaining silent at the shameless murders of helpless prisoners,” was condemned. One wonders how the authorities permit these rebels to meet in this land that has given them a home to talk treason, though we have no regrets in seeing them bold enough to defy the Roman Catholic bishops, even though we do not sympathise with the reason they assign for so doing. The public press, even those papers that shouted loudest in praise of the Irish Treaty, is no longer able to hide the deplorable condition of things in the Free State. Murders, military executions, tearing up of railways, destruction of buildings, is the order of the day, and when it is likely to come to an end no one foresees. Most sane people now realise that Ireland’s sorrows were in herself, and not from Britain.
Filling the Cup of Judgment.
It is now well known that Bolshevism is founded on sheer atheism, and the accounts published recently in the press of the daring blasphemy of the “Reds” of Moscow showed that this godless rule is swiftly filling the cup of judgment. That the religious observances of the Greek Church should be held up to ridicule may be a very small matter, but when it comes to mockery of the Son of God, the mad infatuation of the scorners is not reckoning with Him whose will it is that in all things His Son should have the pre-eminence. As we read the account of these mockeries, the words of the Second Psalm seemed to have an added solemnity:—”Let us break their bonds asunder, and cast away their cords from us. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision. Them shall he speak to them in wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure. Yet have I set my King upon my holy hill of Zion.”
London Protest Against Games on the Sabbath.—
Great meetings were held in London on the 23rd January to protest against the London County Council’s action in permitting games in the public parks on the Lord’s Day. The Solicitor-General, Sir Thomas Inskip, was in the chair. The opponents of games on the Sabbath, he said, were called Puritans. He was proud to be ranked among the Puritans, and in the succession of Pym, Eliot, and Hampden, since Puritanism did more for this country than almost any other movement of its kind in the history of our race. He concluded by saying that the final test of the matter in dispute is the fact that the Sabbath was a divinely appointed day for service to God. It was intimated at the opening of the meeting that an overflow meeting was held in a neighbouring church, and that so many applications had been received that the applicants would have filled the Queen’s Hall, where the main meeting was held, three times over.
Satan’s Use of the Press.—
Some of our readers may have seen that masterpiece of Satan’s propaganda, the American “Sunday” newspaper. It is got up seemingly regardless of cost, and with an attractiveness altogether lacking in the editions issued for reading on lawful days. This is how a writer giving an account of American journalism describes it:—”It should be included among the seven wonders of the world. I have one in front of me now. There are no fewer than 156 pages. The sheets measure 24 by 19 inches, and there are eight columns on a page. The news columns are copiously illustrated; it has in addition 12 separated pages of coloured photogravures of fairly good character, and four additional pages of highly coloured pictures, with accompanying letterpress of low class and silly wit. Religious talk runs side by side with the latest divorce court scandal. Finance jostles with the latest music-hall ditties, and theatrical news rubs shoulders with the latest crime. There is a special literary supplement of well-written articles, a sensational love story, and the latest political news of the world dished up with spicings of rare blend! It takes the average American all day long to get through these pages, and from my brief experience of an American Sunday he must fairly well compass the contents of his mammoth newspaper, which weighs over two and a-quarter pounds. You see everyone reading it—as he goes along the street, as he rides on the trams, as he sits on his doorstep—the white man, the black man, the yellow man, the Pole, the Jew. You can see people devouring its contents as they sit in the open cafes or lounge in the luxurious divans of the hotels.” Unfortunately we need not throw stones at America in this matter. The devil has been successful in forcing his way into British journalism, and the newspapers published for reading on the Lord’s Day do not make for that righteousness that exalts a nation.
An Australian Check on Sabbath Games.
While that great bulwark of religion is being attacked from a hundred quarters, it gives one some encouragement to note that now and again the Sabbath-breaker is not getting all his own way. Some time ago, according to the “Times” correspondent, the Melbourne City Council decided to open the parks on Sabbath for cricket and tennis. When the matter came up for sanction by the State Government of Victoria, it was vetoed. The report does not say on what grounds, but it is something to know that the legislature of Victoria set its face against this flagrant form of Sabbath desecration.
Sabbath Fishing.
For many years our fishermen have strongly opposed fishing on the Lord’s Day, but it would appear that the ancient danger is still present with us of mixing with the heathen and learning their ways. The English custom of fishing on Sabbath seems to have appealed to some of our fishermen, and we are informed that some of the Wick boats now go out on the Lord’s Day. This is, perhaps, only a small beginning, but seeing the trend of events in other directions, who can tell where it will end. It is to be hoped that our fishermen will sternly set their face against Sabbath fishing, and that they will maintain the position hitherto observed by them. Our heartfelt sympathies go out to our fishermen in the adverse circumstances that have threatened their livelihood, but setting at nought God’s commandment will not improve matters for them, even as far as this world is concerned.