Modernist Drift in Presbyterian Theological Colleges.—In a recent issue we noted that Prof. Davey was appointed to the Principalship of the Assembly’s College, Belfast, which at one time was a bulwark of orthodoxy. Prof. Davey as noted on another page of this issue has shifted from the old moorings and is drifting out to an unknown sea. In the September issue of the Irish Evangelical the Editor, Rev. W. J. Grier, B.A., calls attention to some of the text-books issued in the above College—Ottley’s Religion of Israel; Clogg’s Introduction to the New Testament; Cave’s Doctrine of the Work of Christ and has no difficulty in proving their Modernistic tendency. At the General Assembly of the Canadian Presbyterian Church, the Rev. W. M. Mackay asserted that the students were “inoculated with a virus” which rendered them nearly useless. A Committee was appointed to investigate the situation. Satan as a master strategist is capturing the citadels of theological training in the Presbyterian Colleges both at home and abroad and inoculating the young ministry with the virus that is rendering them nearly useless in Canada.
Religious Instruction in English Schools.—The Sovereign Grace Union (19 Ludgate Hill, London, E.C. 4) have issued a leaflet in which samples are presented of the kind of Bible teaching given in some of the English Schools. Most of the quotations are taken from the Cambridge Syllabus. Here are a few of these: “In the Old Testament the stories of Eden and the Fall, of Noah’s Ark, and the Tower of Babel may be regarded as myths”—The book of Esther we are informed is “not historical.”—Daniel is “a heroic and legendary figure of exile days.”—In addition to myth and legend in the Old Testament “there are deliberately fictitious narratives, such as the parables which occur occasionally in the Old Testament and in the Gospels.” It is most deplorable that the children in the schools should be poisoned in the impressionable years of their youth with this poison manufactured in Germany and imported into Britain. We sincerely hope there is none of this teaching in our Scottish schools. Is it any wonder that we are where we are when God’s Word is so treated by so many instructors of the young.
Roman Catholics with the B.B.C.—Bruce, Rev. Father M. V., Scotland Religious Advisory Committee. Beard, Paul, Leader Symphony Orchestra. D’Arcy, Rev. Father M. C., S.J., Central Religious Advisory Committee. Graves, Sir Cecil, K.C.M.G., M.C., Director General. Gorham, M.A.C., N. American Service Director. Harty, Rev. Father T. L., North Religious Advisory Committee. Hamilton, J., B.B.C. Orchestra. Kirkpatrick, Mr. I. A., C.M.G., K.C.S.G., Foreign Adviser to B.B.C. Lane, Rev. Father J. I., North Religious Advisory Committee. MacDonald, Hon. C., European Production Dept. Masterton, Rt. Rev. Mgr. J., North Religious Advisory Committee. Murray, Rev. Father J., Central Religious Advisory Committee. Parker, Rev. Father T. L., Central and North Religious Advisory Committee. Rorke, Mr. J., B.B.C. Repertory etc. Shadwell, Mr. Chas., Musical Director Variety Orchestra. Speight, R. W., Actor Dorothy Sayer’s Plays etc.—Churchman’s Magazine.
Gandhi’s Religion.—According to Life and Work the Rev. E. C. Dewick writing in the National Christian Council Review for June sums up
Gandhi’s religious ideas under the following heads: (1) The Equality of all Life—the life of the dog or the cow is of equal value with that of a human being. (2) The Dogma of Non-Violence, held and applied in the most doctrinaire fashion. (3) The Equality of all Religions—the so-called higher religions have nothing to teach the lower, not even to primitive Animism. He regards all religions as imperfect. If these are a correct interpretation of Gandhi’s religious ideas pity the millions who are following him so blindly. India like other nations with its Mohammedanism and false religions is in need of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ and it is encouraging to know that there are devoted missionaries working there among its benighted millions.
Religion a Vital Element in Education.—In their first interim-report on educational aims the Conservative Party Committee on Education state that the decline of more or less orthodox religious influences in Britain has not been offset by the growth of any popular or new doctrine or attitude which is capable of successfully filling the void created in men’s minds by the widespread weakening of belief, though the Committee express a fear that this void may be filled by a kind of emotional materialism. Religious indifference in Britain it is further affirmed by the Committee concealed a widely spread scepticism which could easily pass into active hostility. Nominal membership of a church had become for many persons an inherited social label rather than an index to real belief.