Protest Meeting against the Teaching of Evolution in Schools and Colleges.—A meeting presided over by Sir Ambrose Fleming was recently held in Essex Hall, Strand, London, with the purpose of launching a protest against the teaching of organic evolution as a scientific truth. Sir Ambrose Fleming said that of late years the Darwinian anthropology had been forced on public attention by numerous books or highly
illustrated periodicals in such fashion as to create a belief that it was a certainly settled scientific truth, and any objections to it were treated as the result of ignorance or bigotry. The fact that many eminent naturalists did not agree that Darwin’s theory of species production had been sufficiently established as a truth was generally repressed. A resolution was passed at the meeting protesting against the continued teaching of the theory of evolution in the schools and colleges and pulpits of Great Britain and the Dominions on the ground that it was not established as a scientific truth. The resolution is good so far but we would have preferred if it said that evolution strikes at the very foundations of the Christian faith and ought to be opposed for this reason. It is high time something was being done to counteract the instilling of this subtle and dangerous poison into the minds of the young in our schools and colleges. The bold assurance with which the advocates of Evolution and the Higher Criticism state their views is ready to sway the minds of the un instructed young. It would be a good thing if an anti-Evolution League could be formed so that the serious nature of Evolution as an attack on the Christian faith might be proclaimed with no hesitating voice.
Roman Catholic Leakages.—We are accustomed to think that Roman Catholics are noted for their loyalty to their Church and that the flock are not given to straying from its fold. This, however, while the truth, is not the whole truth if we are to judge from what Dr. Forbes, Rector of St. Peter’s Roman Catholic College, Bearsden, Glasgow, said recently in a speech to Duntocher Catholic Truth Society. “We are told,” he said, “that what applies to England applies to Scotland. Priests in England tell us that in industrial centres thirty per cent. of the Catholic population never go to church; another thirty per cent. go off and on, probably simply making their Easter Duties, and the remaining thirty per cent. are good practising Catholics. As a rule fifty per cent. make their Easter Duties. Is that true of Scotland? I am afraid it is. There are slum districts in our industrial centres where you will get as many as forty to
sixty families in a street, nominally Catholic. How many of these sixty families would be practising their religion? Probably about eighteen or nineteen; the rest go down the scale until you find a great many who do not practise religion at all. Yet they are nominally Catholic. We must, therefore, conclude that there is no doubt that in Scotland and England as well as in America, in all industrial centres, in the Catholic population there is a great percentage that must be termed by the word leakage; in other words they are rotten branches.” Dr. Forbes should be reminded that the branches were rotten before they were broken off. His statement, that in the slum districts in our industrial centres you will find forty to sixty Roman Catholic families in a street, is significant.
A Eucharistic Congress in Edinburgh.—The Church of Rome believes in pomp and show. It is an “exhibitionist” having a strong desire to show itself and to win the applause of the crowd. Its great Eucharistic Congress are all staged to produce effect and to extend the impression made it is now resorting to local Eucharistic Congresses. One of these, according to St. Mary’s Cathedral Parish Magazine as quoted by the Evening Dispatch (Edinburgh) is to be held in Edinburgh from June 23rd to 25th. “The Holy See,” states the Magazine, “desiring to see these manifestations of faith in the Blessed Sacrament multiplied more and more, even in places where the temporal resources of religion are lacking, has encouraged Congresses on a smaller scale, which are known as Local Congresses. Accordingly, such Congresses are increasing every year.” The days were when such outward displays would not be tolerated in a city in which martyr blood flowed in its streets. We may have something more to say about this “display” later on. Give Rome an inch and it will not be content with a mile.