BY JOHN BUNYAN.
V.
(Continued from p. 271).
I SAW then in my dream, that he went on thus even until he came at the bottom, where he saw, a little out of the way, three men fast asleep, with fetters upon their heels. The name of the one was Simple, another Sloth, and the third Presumption.
Christian then, seeing them lie in this case, went to them, if peradventure he might awake them; and cried, You are like them that sleep on the top of a mast,
for the dead sea is under you, a gulf that hath no bottom: awake, therefore, and come away; be willing also, and I will help you off with your irons. He also told them, if he that goeth about like a roaring lion comes by, you will certainly become a prey to his teeth. With that they looked upon him, and began to reply in this sort: Simple said, “I see no danger:” Sloth said, “Yet a little more sleep:” and Presumption said, “Every tub must stand upon its own bottom.” And so they lay down to sleep again, and Christian went on his way.
Yet was he troubled to think, that men in that danger should so little esteem the kindness of him that so freely offered to help them, both by the awakening of them, counselling of them, and proffering to help them off with their irons. And as he was troubled thereabout, he espied two men come tumbling over the wall, on the left hand of the narrow way; and they made up apace to him. The name of the one was Formalist and the name of the other Hypocrisy. So, as I said, they drew up unto him, who thus entered with them into discourse. Christian—Gentlemen, whence come you, and whither go you? Formalist and Hypocrisy—We were born in the land of Vainglory, and are going for praise to Mount Zion. Christian—Why came you not in at the Gate, which standeth at the beginning of the way? Know you not that it is written, that “He that cometh not in by the door, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber.”
They said, that to go to the Gate for entrance was by all their countrymen counted too far about; and that therefore their usual way was to make a short cut of it, and to climb over the wall, as they had done.
Christian—But will it not be counted a trespass against the Lord of the city whither we are bound, thus to violate his revealed will? They told him, That as for that he needed not to trouble his head thereabout: for what they did they had custom for; and could produce, if need were, testimony that would witness it, for more than a thousand years.
But, said Christian, will your practice stand a trial at law? They told him, that custom, it being of so long standing as above a thousand years, would doubtless now be admitted as a thing legal, by an impartial judge: and besides, said they, if we get into the way, what’s matter which way we get in? If we are in, we are in: thou art but in the way, who as we perceive came in at the Gate; and we are also in the way, that
came tumbling over the wall. Wherein now is thy condition better than ours?
Christian—I walk by the rule of my Master, you walk by the rude working of your fancies: you are counted thieves already by the Lord of the way; therefore I doubt you will not be found true men at the end of the way. You came in by yourselves without His direction, and shall go out by yourselves without His mercy. To this they made but little answer; only they bade him look to himself. Then I saw that they went on every man in his way, without much conference one with another; save that these two men told Christian, that, as to laws and ordinances, they doubted not but they should as conscientiously do them as he. Therefore, said they, we see not wherein thou differest from us, but by the coat that is on thy back which was, as we trow, given thee by some of thy neighbours, to hide the shame of thy nakedness.
Christian—By laws and ordinances you will not be saved, since you came not in by the door. And as for this coat that is on my back, it was given me by the Lord of the place whither I go; and that, as you say, to cover my nakedness with. And I take it as a token of kindness to me; for I had nothing but rags before: and besides, thus I comfort myself as I go. Surely, think I, when I come to the Gate of the city, the Lord thereof will know me for good, since I have His coat on my back; a coat that He gave me freely in the day that He stripped me of my rags. I have moreover a mark in my forehead, of which perhaps you have taken no notice, which one of my Lord’s most intimate associates fixed there, in the day that my burden fell off my shoulders. I will tell you moreover, that I had then given me a roll sealed, to comfort me by reading as I go on the way, I was also bid to give it in at the Celestial Gate, in token of my certain going in after it: all which things I doubt you want, and want them because you came not in at the Gate.
To these things they gave him no answer; only they looked upon each other and laughed. Then I saw that they went on all, save that Christian kept before, who had no more talk but with himself, and that sometimes sighingly and sometimes comfortably: also he would be often reading in the roll that one of the shining ones gave him, by which he was refreshed.—“Pilgrim’s Progress.”
(To be continued).
Literary Notices.
FREE GRACE SERMONS, by the late Rev. Jonathan Ranken Anderson, Minister of the Gospel, Glasgow (1834-1859). Glasgow: R. W. Anderson, 41 St Vincent Place.
It is scarcely necessary for us to say that in this volume our readers will get searching, scriptural preaching that seeks to honour the sovereign God and abases sinful man. The sermons have a fine scriptural ring about them—God is the author of salvation, man is totally ruined; for a multitude chosen in His sovereignty He has prepared a perfect salvation through His dear Son, and it is by the application of that salvation by the Holy Spirit that sinners are saved. Mr Anderson makes it very plain and clear that God was not influenced by any good in His people when He made choice of them in Christ Jesus before the world was. But while laying due and scriptural emphasis on God’s sovereignty, he does not shun to declare man’s responsibility, and while emphasising a definite atonement, he does not shun to declare that sinners of all classes and conditions are freely invited to God’s great salvation. The preaching is of that healthy, searching kind that is not so common as it used to be. We heartily commend the book to our readers. In this volume we have law and gospel faithfully proclaimed. The whole get-up of the book is a credit to the printers and binders. It may be had at the very reasonable price of 2s, post free (which is below cost price) from Mr R. W. Anderson, 41 St Vincent Place, Glasgow, or Mr H. B. Pitt, 4 Clarendon Road, Trowbridge.
BRITISH-ISRAEL UNDER NEW SEARCHLIGHTS, by Avary H. Forbes, M.A.
British Israelism is making a strong bid for a place among the views that are forcing themselves on the attention of the religious public. It has a very large following, and the number of its advocates is increasing. It has been met, we believe successfully, from the Bible, but in this pamphlet an appeal has been made to history, and in our estimation the advocates of British Israelism will find it a very difficult proposition to overturn Mr Forbes’s argument. The pamphlet may be had from the author at his address—Killiney, Fromondes Road, Cheam, Surrey, post free 31/2d.
Notes and Comments.
Good News.—According to the report in one of the dailies, Communism is declining in this country. Its numbers have fallen from 10,800 last year to 7377 this year. The decline is most marked, strange to say, in the mining districts. South Wales, where the movement is most active, has 2300 members; Scotland, 1500, and London 1321. The Communists advance many reasons for the noticeable decline in their numbers, with which we do not at present trouble ourselves, except to say that, from whatever cause the decline comes, we are heartily glad of it, and may it continue until Communism is dead in this country.
Sabbath Observance.—Under the auspices of the Lord’s Day Observance Society large and enthusiastic meetings were held in Inverness, Dingwall, and Oban, etc., recently. The bold move on the part of the enemies of the Sabbath has awakened men to a realisation of the tremendous menace with which they are faced by a pleasure loving, God-defying generation. Without a blush officials of motor bus and railway companies tell us they must have money. But as Dr Love put it:—”Cursed is the gain that is obtained by profaning the Sabbath.” Mr Norman Shaw spoke at these meetings, and the case of Mr Mackenzie, who had been dismissed for refusing to work on the Sabbath on the Great North Road, was mentioned. It is to be hoped, if the present legislation is not sufficient, that laws, with heavy penalties, will be passed rendering it illegal to dismiss any person for conscientiously refusing to break God’s commandment. We trust these meetings will stir up the people and give those who are seeking to ride rough-shod over the convictions of God-fearing men and women to understand that they must call a halt.
The Pope and Temporal Power.—The Osservatore Roma, the organ of the Vatican, has recently been throwing out feelers on the question of the restoration of the temporal power to the Papacy. This organ propounds the strange doctrine that the Church has need of territory “in order to perform its spiritual functions in the world.” From some of the Italian papers it is openly hinted that the Government are quite willing to grant concessions to the Vatican. One of the leading Fascist organs, how-
ever, says:—”It is evident that for Fascist Italy a restoration, even in the most reduced form, of the temporal power which ceased in 1870, with incommensurable advantages, in our opinion, to the moral prestige of the Roman Church, should be out of the question.” If the Vatican gets the slightest encouragement from Italian statesmen we may rest assured it will press its claims with all the earnestness it can and make use of all the machinery of diplomacy it can command. Meantime the negotiations have fallen through.
The Case Against Evolution.—The place of honour in the November issue of “The Nineteenth Century and After” is given to a striking article by Mr George H. Bonner. “There is no conclusive evidence,” he says, “in historical times of the change of one species into another . . . The species have, generally speaking, remained relatively fixed since the beginning of history. The argument that historical time is not sufficient does not alter the principle in the slightest. If this theory were proved as the real explanation, there ought to be, not a few, but thousands of examples of the individuals of one species actually changing into another species before our eyes. There should not be one but hundreds of missing links found in the world to-day. If it is maintained that the process went on in prehistoric times but has now ceased, then the whole theory falls to the ground, for the essential characteristic of this interpretation of the theory of Evolution is that it is a continuous process, a progressive development of the higher from the lower.”
“A Miserable, Obscurantist and Illogical Theory.”—This is Mr Bonner’s characterisation of Evolution, which he says is “sponsored by leading minds as the standard of a crusade for truth, but in reality unsupported by any real evidence, upheld as a product of reason, but, when examined, found to be of all theories the most unreasonable.” We cannot here give even a summary of some of his striking and convincing arguments against Evolution, but content ourselves with giving one or two quotations from his article. “One might well think the human race in a curious condition,” he writes, “when a bishop [Dr Barnes] in a cathedral can preach a sermon which is absolutely inconsistent with the fundamentals of the creed of his Church. Strange things have in the past been done in the name of religion, but none stranger than this.” Again, “The teachings of Christianity . . .
and the present-day teaching of Evolution are fundamentally incompatible; nor can the most skilful evasion of real issues and the glossing over of awkward questions make them consistent.” “There is not a shred of conclusive evidence,” he further writes, “for the animal ancestry of man: the whole structure of its colossal delusion rests upon certain similarities between the physical nature of man and that of the animals—similarities which are easily explainable without postulating any descent of man from the apes.” There are certain opinions in this able article with which we do not agree, but the writer has certainly touched on certain points of vital weakness in this theory that have not hitherto received the attention they deserve.
The Archbishop of Canterbury’s Letter to the Bishop of Birmingham.—Dr Barnes, after the protest made by Canon Bullock-Webster in St Paul’s against his heretical teaching, addressed an open letter to his metropolitan, the Archbishop of Canterbury, in which he tries to defend himself for his statements in his sermons at Westminster Abbey and Birmingham on Evolution and the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. The Archbishop replied to him in a public letter, in which he clearly accepts evolutionary teaching while condemning the way in which Dr Barnes states it. This is a very serious matter for the Church of England, and must cause real sorrow and grief to thousands of loyal-hearted believers in God’s Word in the National Church. It is significant, also, that the weight of Dr Davidson’s censure on Dr Barnes fell on him because of his condemnation of Romish and Anglo-Catholic teaching on the Lord’s Supper. It is true Dr Barnes’s sweeping statements not only struck at Romish and Anglo-Catholic positions, but at the view held by the Reformed Church, but it is disturbing to think of the severity of the Archbishop’s rebuke on this part of the Bishop’s teaching while not a word of condemnation comes from his pen on Dr Barnes’s infidel views of the Bible account of man’s origin.
Will there be a Secession from the Church of England?—This question is being seriously discussed in Evangelical circles in the Church of England. The determination to pass the new Prayer-Book into law is a serious matter for all those who are strongly opposed to the Romeward drift that has characterised the Anglo-Catholic movement in that Church. And while the new Prayer-Book does not go far enough in the Romeward
direction to satisfy the Anglo-Catholics, it certainly goes too far to be satisfactory to true Protestants in the National Church of England. What is to happen is known to God alone, but it must be a time of real anxiety to many serious-minded persons in the English Church. Wisdom, courage, and grace are needed to guide those who would seek to do what is right in this crisis.
Church Notes.
Communions. — January—Last Sabbath, Inverness. Feb.—First Sabbath, Dingwall. South African Mission.—The following are the dates of the Communions: —Last Sabbath of March, June, September, and December. Note.—Notice of any additions to, or alterations of, the above list should be sent to the Editor.
Collection for this Month.—The collection for the General Church Building Fund is to be taken up this month.
Death of Mr Donald Macrae, Elder, Gairloch. — It is with deep regret we record the death of Mr Donald Macrae, elder, Gairloch. Mr Macrae had been ailing for a number of years, but the loss of his daughter some time ago was a heavy blow to him, and evidently hastened the end. We tender our sincere and heartfelt sympathy to Mrs Macrae and her family, and also to the congregation of Gairloch.