By A READER.
IN a sermon preached by the late Rev. Lachlan MacKenzie, the eminently saintly minister of Lochcarron, in the year 1803, he declared that “Popish, Pagan, and Mahometan delusion shall universally prevail for some time previous to the millennium.” He added that this state of things would spring up in the professedly Protestant Church, and that the true witness would be subject to tyranny, intolerance, and persecution. In another sermon, preached in the same year, he speaks of the glorious days at the end of this sad period, when “the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.” As the writer believes we are now in the midst of the first part of the fulfilment of the prevailing delusion, he urges, with all the emphasis possible, that every effort should be made to extend the circulation of our Church Magazines, as they have a more balanced grip of the religious situation to-day than any other magazines known to the writer. For instance, the modernistic World Council of Churches, nominally Protestant, and a modern international ecumenical movement, holds annual meetings in, among other places, Egypt, where Greek Orthodox and Mahometans take part, and to which the members of the Papal System are cordially invited. Thus, Rev. Lachlan MacKenzie’s words, above referred to, are already finding ample fulfilment, but, we believe, things will be still much darker and more terrible before the brighter days dawn. We, therefore, need all the guidance possible.
It is, therefore, of the utmost importance, in the terribly dark period between now and the dawning of the millennium, that the Free Presbyterian Magazine and the Young People’s Magazine, with their finger on the pulse of the prevailing apostate movements, should be circulated far and wide. Like charity, of course, the circulation must begin at home. It is lamentable that there are still some nominally Free Presbyterian families into which the Church magazines never come. The present writer has been circulating several copies of our Church magazine monthly since 1922, at his own expense, that being the year when he first took, or rather, was led to take, an interest in spiritual things.
The writer belongs to a congregation where every individual is a regular subscriber to our magazines, and this ought to be true of every congregation in our Church at home and abroad, and of every individual Free Presbyterian everywhere. Special and constant prayer for blessing on the circulation and reading of the magazines ought to prevail. It is most gratifying to see, from time to time, some of those to whom the writer has sent copies becoming regular subscribers, and this has been happening from year to year, from the date above mentioned. Motives in such efforts ought to be: (1) the glory of God in maintaining and vindicating His truth, and exposing soul-ruining error; (2) the conviction and conversion of sinners; and (3) the edification and confirmation of believers in their most holy faith. Never was there greater need than there is in these back-sliding apostatising days to circulate doctrinally and Scripturally sound literature, such as the two magazines of our Church so ably presented to their readers.
Another matter intimately connected with the foregoing subject is that of regular attendance at Church by our people, for in these dark days Free Presbyterians have the unspeakably blessed privilege of hearing from our pulpits a full-orbed Gospel, such as the Apostles, martyrs, Puritans and Covenants laid down their lives for. Apart from the spiritual loss to those involved, the Free Presbyterian Church is not so large that it can afford to be losing its adherents for such reasons as marriage outside the Church, general neglect and indifference relative to attendance on the public means of grace. What else but sheer sinful carelessness can account for the fact that young men and women from the Highlands and Islands, coming to our larger towns and cities, such as Inverness, but especially Glasgow, Edinburgh and London, never darken a church door, though some of them are resident for years in these places? Ministers from whose congregations these young men and women go, should be informed of the fact by parents and relatives, and let that particular minister, in turn, inform the minister in the town or city in which they have come to reside. Ministers, missionaries and office-bearers should do everything possible relative to every Free Presbyterian family subscribing to the Church magazines, and parents and relatives should see to it that their sons and daughters leaving home should continue subscribing to the magazines in their new place of residence. The perusal of our magazines would thus not only become a strong binding link with the Church, and a counter-acting influence against the evil practices prevalent in their new environment, but, by the blessing of the Holy Spirit, an effectual means of salvation and edification. Being a Free Presbyterian is a most precious privilege, which should not be sacrificed or bartered away for anything this vain fleeting world has to offer.