II.
IN our last issue we made some general remarks preparatory to reviewing some of the speeches delivered at the great Congress held in Glasgow at the end of October in the launching of what is known as the Forward Movement of the Church of Scotland. The Rev. George F. Macleod, minister of Govan Old Church, and a descendant of a long line of the name connected with the Church of Scotland, in his speech dealt with the question of the Church’s position in the social reconstruction of the next thirty years. The burden of Mr. Macleod’s speech was that the Church must die if it was to live and one element that entered into this dying was to be their attitude to Sabbath observance. We quote his words at length as reported in the press:—”There was a dying to be done in some way, in their attitude to ‘Sunday’ observance. It was obvious, of course, that there were great benefits in the Sabbath secured by the work of past generations, but new attitudes had for the last 20 years been hemming them around, so that they were almost suffocated, and some of their pronouncements seemed to him to give the impression that they looked on ‘Sunday’ as the last fortress that they held, and if that fortress went they were done. Let them remember that the Church, in the greatest day of its vitality, did not have a ‘Sunday’ at all. In the day of its
greatest vitality the Church was an affair of every day of the week. How many of the churchless millions were misunderstanding the Church because they thought it was an organisation perpetually concerned with its own life? He would like to see their preoccupation with ‘Sunday’ forgotten for a time, that they might get out into the open fields, which was sometimes the only way of defending a fortress. Might it not be that the clash of modern life was so persistent on the youth of our land that it was the demand of God that they should get out and re-find beauty? Might the Church not have the courage to have full sympathy with that? It might seem like losing Sunday, but might it not be winning souls, with whom, in the days to come, they might recapture a Sunday that these youths themselves would understand? He could not get out of his mind the fact of Germany, where Sunday was a grim day, where Lutheranism was failing to appeal to the industrial classes, and where the people began the ‘hiking and biking’ movement over the week-ends in the face of a grudging church. He could not get out of his mind the fact that to-day one million of German youth had gone atheist in the last two years, had been caught up in the materialistic attitude to life that came from Russia.”
Over seventy years ago his relative, Dr. Norman Macleod, made his notorious speech against the binding obligation of the fourth commandment which created such a storm in Scotland that the popular preacher became one of the most severely criticised men in the country. But the seed sown has ripened and Mr. Macleod need have no fear that his iconoclastic utterance will bring him very many critics in the Church of Scotland—at least not nearly so many as he would have to face seventy years ago. He need not advise as a remedy for better times that preoccupation with the Sabbath question should be forgotten. Satan is attending well enough to that without any help from the minister of Govan. It is this very attitude of many ministers in the Church of Scotland that has helped to bring about the present flood of Sabbath desecration in Scotland. One writer in the press has laid his finger on the plague spot
in this matter as far as the Church of Scotland is concerned when he says: “The difficulty is that the Church itself has no lucid and coherent view upon the Sabbath and what is required for its observance and it might even be argued that the Church in its own practice and through some of the methods which it has adopted to popularise itself has perhaps contributed to the changes which it deplores on the part of the world.” This witness is true. Mr. Macleod is quite at sea in thinking that the present religious condition in Germany is due to the strict Sabbatarianism of the Lutherans. In fact the Lutheran conception of how the Sabbath ought to be kept was extremely loose and if Mr. Macleod wishes any information on the subject he will find it in Hengstenberg’s “The Lord’s Day,” a book which would have delighted Dr. Hessey, Dr. Norman Macleod and all those who are determined opponents of strict Sabbatarianism. If this is to form a plank in the Forward Movement the sooner the responsible parties have it removed the better as it will do irreparable damage to their cause. Mr. Macleod has entirely misread the history of religious life in Germany when he attributed the atheism of the German youth to strict Sabbatarianism. That atheism is mainly due to the Higher Criticism and the same results are being produced in Scotland from the same source. As if he had not said enough in the foregoing he concludes by saying: “If to take up some new attitude to Sabbath observance is inevitably to face death in the minds of some people, do let us remember the hundreds of thousands of youth to-day whom we are handing over to Communism in the last resort, or at any rate to a materialistic philosophy of life.” One has to read these words over again to make sure one is not misreading them. It seems incredible that a Presbyterian minister who signed the Confession even in the loose way now tolerated in the Church of Scotland could allow himself to give utterance to such views. Mr. Macleod would do well to read and ponder over the words to the angel of the Church of Sardis: “I know that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead. Be watchful and strengthen the
things which remain, that are ready to die; for I have not found thy works perfect before God. Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast and repent. If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee” (Rev. iii. 1-3).
One of the subjects dealt with at an evening session of the Congress was: “The Central Faith of the Church: the Fatherhood of God.” One of the speakers was Dr. Malthby, Principal of Methodist Deaconess College, Ilkley. Dr. Malthby’s speech is not reported in the newspaper we have before us but one can judge fairly accurately how a Methodist would treat such a subject and that it would not be along the lines once professed by the Church of Scotland.
The seriousness of betting and gambling was emphasised by several of the speakers and the Church’s duty to do its utmost to counteract these evils was stressed. Lord Polwarth, who took part in the discussion, said that when he ceased, after twenty years, to be responsible for dealing with the crime of the country, he had come to the conclusion that unquestionably betting and gambling were responsible for more crime than any other single cause.
Another subject dealt with at the Congress was the drift of so many young Jews to sheer materialism. This was regarded as a serious menace. The Jew in his greed for gain was also exploiting the Christian Sabbath. There can be little doubt, as Mr. Ian Macpherson stated in the House of Commons, that a good deal of agitation for the opening of cinemas on the Lord’s Day came from Jews though we are far from saying that Gentiles are guiltless in the matter. When the Observance of the Sabbath question came before the Congress it was suggested that the Church should consider the advisability of holding early morning services for those who wished to betake themselves to the country. We had no idea that there were such simpletons in the Church of Scotland as to make this suggestion. The people who mean to spend the Sabbath in the country have very
little thought about religious services in the vast majority of cases. One speaker raised the question of the “Sunday” newspaper and said the Church should begin to face up to what was its attitude towards the question. It is lamentable that any of the people of the Church of Scotland should have any doubt as to what is its attitude on this question. During the discussion on the subject one of the speakers, the Rev. T. B. Prentice, said the Lord’s Day was observed much more strictly in Jamaica than in Scotland at the present time. Poor Scotland! it had other days.
Dr. White, who had such a leading part in bringing about the Union, dealt with “The New World Situation.” The only comment we have to make on his speech, as reported in the press, is that made by a “young Christian” writing to the “Glasgow Herald” when he says: “Dr. White in his address never even mentioned the name of Christ and if He is not honoured and given His proper place in the Church how can there be any forward movement?” It is only fair to him, however, to add that this defect was remedied in an article he subsequently wrote for the “Scots Observer.”
The most stirring and arresting address delivered at the Congress was that of Professor A. A. Bowman, Glasgow University, on “The Kingdom of God in the Far East.” In the course of his remarks he said that the Western world to-day was still what it always had been, incorrigibly pagan, “Let us begin this great movement with ourselves,” he suggested, “and, if I might make such an audacious suggestion, I would say that perhaps we might begin with a mission to the ministers and elders of the Church of Scotland.” A very happy suggestion we say and it is to be hoped that before the Forward Movement is very much older that among its activities will be a “Mission to Ministers and Elders of the Church of Scotland.” There is certainly much need for some of the ministers and elders being evangelised.
The speeches generally were disappointing, no doubt some of the speakers made good suggestions, but taking the speeches
generally they were extremely disappointing and in some cases not helpful—to the purpose of the Movement. One missed in them that appeal to the Word of God that used to characterise speeches delivered on such occasions in other days in Scotland. The language too is rapidly changing and for the time honoured evangelical phrases we have in their place such as “dynamic of fellowship of God,” “realism of the Christian Ethic,” etc., phrases, while intelligible to those trained in the schools somehow or other indicate a new outlook on religious and theological matters. This criticism may be termed somewhat hypercritical; nevertheless the new phraseology recalls what Nehemiah said about the Jews that had married wives of Ashdod, Ammon, and of Moab, their children “spake half in the speech of Ashdod and could not speak in the Jews’ language, but according to the language of each people” (Neh. xiii. 23, 24). It may not be always wise to prophesy but from what took place in Glasgow we will take the liberty of saying about the Forward Movement what Principal MacGregor said about the equestrian statue “where the horse looked as if it were bounding forward, but 20 years afterwards they found it was in exactly the same place.” We have no hesitation in placing this forecast over against Dr. Fraser’s expectations expressed in the words: “God will not disappoint us. I know not how He will come. But He will come, and He will speak. So we wait for Him, not for another, not for mighty speeches, or thrilling emotions but for God” and our reason for doing so is that the Church of Scotland in this Congress has given no definite signs of sorrow for the injury she has done to God’s Word and the faith once delivered to the saints. Time will tell whose forecast came nearer to the truth.
It is with no light heart we say these things, we would rejoice in seeing the Spirit poured out on this great Church and sinners converted within her pale for when that day will come there will be a return to the heritage she has so lightheartedly sold and in being blessed she would prove a blessing to Scotland and far beyond.