The Failure of the Forward Movement in the Church of Scotland.
The utter collapse of this much boomed movement which was inaugurated a year ago by almost every publicity device that the Church of Scotland could command must be disconcerting in the extreme to the men who engineered it. According to its promoters the drive against indifferentism to religion was to be pressed home to a successful issue. Dr. Donald Fraser, with a great staff of workers, who might be termed “the shock troops” of the movement, were to work a miracle in Scotland, but the whole organization, with the multitudinous speechifyings, has fallen as flat as a gas-filled balloon when pierced. It is a lamentable state of things and should deeply humble the promoters who vainly imagined that a well organized propaganda could galvanize the dead into living, active servants of the true God. Such movements are to be deplored for they affect the religious life of the country in the most detrimental way and leave matters worse after these whirlwind campaigns than it was before. The Americans in their own effective way have hit off the methods of some of their politicians as consisting of one part whirl and three parts wind. In this particular case one might safely say that the wind was the most prominent element while the whirl was negligible. Even the “Scots Observer” has opened its columns to a discussion of the failure of the Movement. About a year ago we wrote in these Notes: “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 twenty years afterwards they found it was exactly in 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 He will come.'”
“For Men of Clear Intellect Darwinism Has Long Been Dead.
Such is the statement of Dr. Driesch, one of the greatest of German biologists quoted by Dr. T. Miller Neathy, M.A., M.D. (Cantab), M.A. (London), in the first of two very interesting articles in the Christian, 1st September (Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 12 Paternoster Buildings, London, E.C.4). We always held the opinion that clear thinking men saw through the sophistries by which the scientific world was led astray by the illogical reasoning of Darwin and we are glad to have our opinion confirmed by one of the greatest of German biologists. There are still a few, like Sir Arthur Keith and Bishop Barnes, who were carried off their feet by the strong flow of the Darwinian springtide and who are still so deluded as to believe that the tide is at the full while all around them are the evidences of the ebb in the refuse the tide left behind. Darwinism and its twin brother, the Higher Criticism, are two of the greatest delusions that ever captured the mind of the learned world. Though the former has been set aside by “men of clear intellect” yet many still cling to post-Darwinian Evolution, not because it is proved, but because it offers to their mind the only alternative to Creationism and the latter they are not willing to accept at any price. Looking back on the days when Darwinism was lauded to the skies it seems almost incredible that the scientific world should have been so duped by Darwin’s specious reasoning as that scientific men were falling over one another to pay their demi-god all the honours they had at their command. Our main purpose in writing this note is to call the attention of teachers and students and others interested in the subject to the articles in the Christian as they will find in a short space information that may be of special benefit to them.*
Dr. Yahuda on the Pentateuch.
A series of interesting articles under the title—”Truth of the Bible”—appeared recently in the Daily Telegraph (London) from the pen of Dr. A. S. Yahuda. Dr. Yahuda’s contention is that “from the start the Exodus narrative shows an environment which can only be conceived in Egypt.” “All the arrangements,” he says, “all the institutions, officials, habits and manners, have an exclusively Egyptian character. The whole phraseology and style of narration bear a typical Egyptian stamp. So much is this the case that many expressions and phrases can only be rightly understood after their Egyptian origin is detected.” The author has given much study to the Old Testament and the ancient languages in the East. He contests the modern higher critical view of the late origin of the Pentateuch. His studies have convinced him that the writing of the Books of Moses must go back to a time when the Hebrews lived in constant and intimate contact with the Egyptians. The arguments, at least the philological ones, set forth in the newspaper articles are to be more fully developed in his forthcoming book—The Language of the Pentateuch in its Relation to Egyptian (Oxford University Press). This is not the first time that this method of attack has been made on the Higher Critical Citadel for in the Deciding Voice of the Monuments in Biblical Criticism (London: 1924) President Kyle, of Zenia Theological Seminary, while treating the subject more from the standpoint of archaeology made use of some of the philological arguments. We await, with interest, the reception awaiting Dr. Yahuda’s book by the Higher Critics and wonder whether they will ignore it or ostrich-like bury their heads in the sand.