Broadcasting by the Church of Rome.
The Church of Rome is quick to recognise an opportunity for propaganda through wireless broadcasting. In a recent communication to the “Times,” it is stated that for the purpose of “acquainting the public with the Catholic point of view upon current affairs, the Paulist Fathers intend to instal a broadcasting station at the headquarters of the organisation, the Church of St Paul the Apostle, New York. The installation marks the first step in the movement by Roman Missions, inaugurated with the jubilee year celebrations, for teaching Americans the truth about the Roman Catholic Church. It is planned to broadcast lectures and instructions by well-known priests and laymen and also concerts by the Paulist choristers, and probably Cardinal Hayes will henceforth broadcast his messages to the New York arch-diocese. The Church contemplates erecting similar stations in several cities.”
Was Darwin a Christian?
The following letters which Sir Francis Darwin sent to Mr A. Le Lievre, Secretary of the Protestant Press Bureau, should be a sufficient answer to this question, which would probably never have been raised had it not been for Lady Hope’s statement. The two letters were reprinted a few months ago in the “Life of Faith,” and are as follows:—(1) “I have to-day received your letter, dated November 23rd [1917]. Lady Hope’s account of her interview with my father is a fabrication, as I have already publicly pointed out. I have no reason whatever to believe that he ever altered his agnostic point of view, as given in my ‘Life of Charles Darwin’ in vol. I., p. 55.—Yours faithfully, Francis Darwin.” (2) “Lady Hope’s account of my father’s views on religion is quite untrue. I have publicly accused her of falsehood, but I have not seen any reply. My father’s agnostic point of view is given in my ‘Life and Letters of Charles Darwin,’ vol. I., pp. 304-317. You are at liberty to publish the above statement. Indeed, I shall be glad if you will do so.—Yours faithfully, Francis Darwin.”
An Interesting Testimony.
Sir William Willcocks, the famous Eastern irrigation engineer, in a recent issue of “Life and Faith,” tells how “living in the contentious atmosphere of the critics” his past life for thirty-two years has been sterile and barren. “As a Modernist,” he says, “my motto had been ‘We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Spirit.’ I spent my time discovering new evidences of the incompetence and duplicity of those whom the Holy Spirit has inspired to write the Scriptures.” Then Dr Dick Wilson’s “Are the Higher Critics Scholarly?” fell into his hands. “This settled me,” he says. “During my studies of Bible facts in the valleys of the Nile and Euphrates I had often proved the accord of the Bible accounts with observations by level and compass, with observations of the behaviours of the rivers, with the ideas of the time and with the mode of expression of the time in the spoken language.” Sir William further adds:—”I have returned to my old faith in the Word of God and literally live in it.”
The Free Church and the Church Bill.
A statement made by Dr White, Glasgow, recently at a meeting called forth a good deal of comment, and led to a statement being presented in private to the Commission of the Free Church by the Committee on the Claim of Right. The Committee desired to make it known that in anything done by or on behalf of the Church or its Committee there had been no compromise of principle embodied in the Claim of Right, nor was there any intention to enter into the proposed Union of the larger Churches. The Committee, while maintaining their protest against the Bill, have resolved to take no further action on the Bill.