The Press and Sabbath Observance.
Now and again through the happening of certain events one gets an insight into the attitude of the press to Sabbath observance. There are honourable exceptions but generally speaking the kind of Sabbath observance that would be tolerated by the great majority of pressmen is of the most nebulous kind. This country is now flooded with newspapers that had their original home over the Border and the attitude on the Sabbath question as set forth in these papers would leave us very little of the Sabbath if the people of this country were foolish enough to follow their counsels. In many cases the men whose oracular utterances appear in the press are engaged in Sabbath work and one might as soon expect to find a band of Mussolini hero-worshippers bringing in a verdict of guilty against his high-handed, tyrannical policy towards Abyssinia as to think that these pressmen would be supporters of the scriptural law of Sabbath observance. The writers of editorial and special articles, seasoned with biting sarcasms, inconsequent reasoning, infallible deliverances, jibes and sneers, have greatly mistaken their calling and become too obsessed with their self-importance in imagining they have a right to lay down a law to the people of Scotland on Sabbath observance contrary to the Word of God and based on their own loose thinking. They profess to be the advocates of a wider liberty and a saner outlook on the big world around them. They hurl the words “narrow-minded” and “bigot” with irresponsible abandon at those from whom they differ in a way which certainly does not indicate the possession of much sanity, and still less of broad-mindedness. There are no bigots who can be so intensely fierce and so unreasonable as these men when they sit in judgment on those who may in many respects be their superiors both as men and Christians. A press with such an attitude is a menace to the religious life of this country. They do not seem to realise that their plea for liberty brings them up against the immovable wall of authority: an authority which is not human but divine. The weapons employed by these writers are taken from an old armoury which has, in all ages, supplied those who had as much religion as the pens with which they write their thoughts. Have things come so low that the Church of Christ must listen to what these men say. “They are of the world: therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth them” (I. John iv. 5).
Some Ministers and “Green Pastures.”
It seems that some ministers in Scotland regard this burlesque of divine things as quite reverent. We have read some of these so-called reverent vapourings in one of the daily papers and how any one who has any respect for divine things to say nothing of professed ministers of the gospel can speak of them as reverent is beyond our comprehension. It shows to what a low level vital religion has descended when “Green Pastures” would not be hounded out of the country. We subjoin a letter from one of the Glasgow evening papers, a sensible piece of criticism, amidst much silly nonsense which is served up to its readers night after night. “I have not seen ‘Green Pastures,'” says this correspondent, “but if I have to witness my religion being mocked I will certainly not go to see the picture. The negroes may think that God is a benevolent-looking old gentleman in a frock-coat, although we know that to be ridiculous and wrong. . . . . but he who is a white Christian and who could sit and look at such blasphemy: there have we found the real sinner.”
Matters of Interest: Divorce Bill for Scotland and Changes in Coronation Oath.
Lord Alness has introduced a Bill in the House of Lords proposing to give wider scope for divorce in Scotland. Hitherto the law of the land was that set down in the Confession of Faith viz: that “nothing but adultery, or such wilful desertion as can in no way be remedied by the Church or Civil Magistrate, is cause sufficient of dissolving the bond of marriage.” The new Bill, if passed into law, will permit divorce for insanity, habitual drunkenness, etc.
In the new form of the King’s Coronation Oath among other changes made is the omission of “King by the Grace of God.” Whatever opinions may be held on the other changes we cannot but condemn this change. The position occupied by the Duke of Norfolk in the Coronation ceremonies is awakening concern in the minds of Protestants and suspicions exist in the minds of many, whether well founded or not our present information does not enable us either to affirm or deny that some of the changes such as the omission of “Defender of the Faith” may be due to him. We leave these matters meantime without further comment as Committees of the Synod, we understand, have them under review.