A New Movement Among the Jews.
As many of our readers know, the pioneers of Zionism who are organising the Jewish national home in Palestine are men of materialistic conceptions, whose proceedings are viewed with grave concern by the religious section of the Jews. As a counter move, a new organisation has been formed under the name of Agudath Israel (the Band of Israel). This Association held a meeting recently in Vienna, at which the irreligious character of the leaders and followers of the pioneers of Zionism was denounced. The Agudath Israel is a call to Israel to go back to its ancestral faith. Members of the Agudath Israel are still looking for the advent of the Messiah. At times it looks like that this people, so mysteriously preserved in the providence of God, should never come to know the true Messiah. But God’s word will be fulfilled, and all Israel shall be saved. They have become, according to God’s threatening, “an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword among all nations,” but they are beloved, not for their own, but for the fathers’ sakes.
Wales and Sabbath Observance.
It is encouraging to learn that while the god of Pleasure is barefacedly demanding almost everywhere that the Lord’s Day should be devoted to him, that his followers are not getting it all their own way. At Holyhead the Town Council has passed a resolution prohibiting the hire of pleasure boats on Sabbath, and the Council of the Lleyn Promontory have also passed a resolution and sent it to the Pwllheli Town Council protesting against circuses and menageries being allowed to leave the town on the Lord’s Day. In the determined effort to do away with the observance of the Sabbath it is encouraging to find here and there that a check is put on the efforts of the Philistines.
The Covenanters Under the Fire of a Philistine.
In the part devoted to Scotland in “Peoples of All Nations,” Mr Hamilton Fyfe, a widely travelled correspondent of the “Daily Mail,” and an expert journalist, writes an introduction on “The Scots in Fiction and Fact,” in which quite a number of our countrymen will readily admit that his power as a writer of fiction out-balances his skill as a writer of fact. Our main controversy with Mr Fyfe, however, is his undisguised ignorance of some of the features that went to give Scotland an honoured place among the nations. He speaks of the Covenanters, those far-seeing patriotic men, whose determined resistance broke the tyrant’s power, and purchased our liberty at a tremendous price to themselves as “rigid sectarian fanatics of the Covenant, who surpassed the Puritans in deeds of blood, and left upon the spirit of their countrymen a cloud of gloom and sanctimonious pretence which has been passing away only within the last generation.” In another sentence he somewhat qualifies this jaundiced castigation, but to multitudes who never knew of the noble contending of these heroic witnesses for the truth his false characterisation will be accepted as truth. We know the history of our godly forefathers sufficiently well to read with a feeling of pain such unjust descriptions of men who were hunted while they lived, and whose memory is now maligned that they are dead.
Childish Nonsense.
On another matter Mr Fyfe shows his power as a writer of fiction in holding up to ridicule what he is pleased to term the Pharisaical Self-Righteousness of our countrymen in their observance of the Sabbath. To show the depth of insanity to which men of Mr Fyfe’s calibre may sink in dealing with such matters, take the following story told by an old Highlander to a Glasgow artist:—”Last Sabbath, just as we were comin’ oot o’ kirk, there was a drover chield frae Dumfries comin’ along the road, whustlin’ and lookin’ as happy as if it was the middle of the week. Weel, sir, oor lads just set upon him and a’ most killed him.” This childish nonsense is seriously quoted as proof that the Scots’ love of the Sabbath is “Pharisaical Self-Righteousness.” Mr Fyfe no doubt meant to be funny, but while trying to make fools of others, he has unconsciously put the cap and bells on himself. It is passing strange how men who have widely travelled, are well read and conversant with the customs of many peoples, should show on such matters such childish insanity which, like the loud laugh, betrays the vacant mind.
Mr Kensit’s Protest.
The high places in the Church of England seem to be reserved for advanced Ritualists. The recent appointment by the Prime Minister of the Rev. W. H. Frere, head of the Community of the Resurrection, Mirfield, Yorkshire, to the vacant see of Truro has called forth the following protest from Mr Kensit:—”The appointment is calculated to disturb the minds of large sections of loyal Churchmen. Not only has Dr Frere been the head of the Mirfield monks, bound by the same monastic vows as Roman Catholic orders, but he is the foremost champion of the effort to destroy the reformed character of the Book of Common Prayer. His heart, like that of the party he represents, is in mediaeval rites and ceremonies, and no greater disservice to the Church of England as a Protestant institution can be rendered than the nomination of such men to bishoprics.”
Hankering After the Symbolism of the Cross.
The Rev. Dr Archibald Fleming, London, spent his holidays in Kingussie, where he listened to a sermon by the parish minister describing a visit to one of the sub-Columban chapels in Tiree. Dr Fleming seems to be deeply in love with the symbolism of the Cross, which an austere Presbyterianism has banished from our churches. The severe simplicity of our Presbyterian churches grates on his soul hankering after the beauty of holiness as understood by many of his school, and he yearns for the day when this want of adornment will give place to a more elaborate decoration of the places of worship. He hopes that the ancient and later symbol which characterised the worship of the Columban Church will soon be restored. For our own part, we cannot understand this hankering after ancient Christian symbolism, whether it be the Cross or any other symbol. The study of these ancient symbols as an interpretation of early Christian ideas may be necessary for the student of history, but to long for their return to adorn Christian worship is a sure sign of spiritual decadence, and the emphasising of the outward form at the expense of the complete suppression of the spiritual. May the plain severity of our services long remain, and if the Spirit’s presence be granted, we shall be able to worship God in the beauty of holiness, even though the place of meeting be a barn, in a truer sense than in a cathedral with magnificent decorations and elaborate ritual.
Mr Brider’s Mission.
Mr Brider has written thanking us for the parcel of Magazines he receives regularly each month. In his letter he says:—”Only last week I was told by one of the men what a blessing he found in reading one of the sermons in the Free Presbyterian Magazine. So we labour on, and we are very grateful to you and the Committee for this kind help to us month by month.”