Ministers and Sabbath Observance.
—In our last issue attention was called to Prof. Main’s mischievous speech in which he suggested the compromise of attending divine service in the morning and leaving the afternoon of the Sabbath for recreation. The Rev. H. S. McClelland, Trinity Church, Glasgow, is of the opinion evidently that the Professor is too narrow and puritanic in his ideas of Sabbath observance for he would allow people to keep it as they please. In neither case do these ministers pay attention to the binding obligation of the Fourth Commandment if they are to be judged by their utterances. While these sentiments were being expressed in the south, in the far north the Presbytery of Shetland was discussing the question of the calling of the North Isles mail steamer on Sabbath during winter at the islands of Unst and Yell. The Rev. W. Begg who raised the question said he had no objection to the steamer calling during the summer for the convenience of visitors but there was no necessity for the steamer making its call during the winter months. The Rev. Victor Wands, Yell, opposed this half-and-half motion and boldly announced that “Sabbatarianism is dead and there is no hope of seeing it revived.” If it is, it is because ministers, to a large extent, like himself and Mr. Begg, with half and half measures, have had a hand in putting it to death. The Presbytery, after the discussion, decided to appoint a Committee to investigate the matter of the Sabbath call of the steamer at the islands mentioned.
Overdoing it.
—In these days when a false charity is considered a virtue by many to condemn what is inconsistent with truth is usually characterised as fault finding when praise for that which is dishonouring to truth is numbered among the modern virtues. The monasteries which Dr. Coulton and Dr. Hay Fleming have shown to have been hot beds of vice are often described in the most glowing terms as seminaries of culture and all the virtues. Prof. Riddell in his What We Believe has a paragraph in which the monasteries have an honourable place given to them. “The monasteries,” he says, “which meant so much for the culture and civilisation of the Middle Ages have been described as camps of the disciplined army of God, scattered over the half pagan soil of Europe like fortresses in a newly conquered territory.” Others, and perhaps they are nearer the mark, have described them as the disciplined army of Satan.
The Boy Scout Movement.
—In a letter which appeared recently in the English Churchman Mr. F. J. Pizzey characterises this movement as a “positive menace” and in a later issue of the same paper the Rev. Colin C. Kerr uses even stronger language and gives his reasons for describing it as “one of the greatest menaces to youth to-day.” We reprint these reasons in this month’s Young People’s Magazine and indeed they are sufficiently serious to be a warning to all parents who have a true interest in their children’s religious welfare to use all their authority and influence in keeping them from joining the movement.