Voluntary Euthanasia Rejected in House of Lords.
On Tuesday, 28th November, 1950, Lord Chorley, Vice-President of the Voluntary Euthanasia Legislation Society, opened a debate on a proposal to make it legal to put to death at their own request people suffering from painful, incurable disease. He claimed that a considerable volume of public opinion was in favour of “mercy killing.” The Synod, in May, 1950, passed a resolution condemning the principle of Voluntary Euthanasia and calling upon Members of Parliament to oppose any attempt to introduce legislation to legalise such unchristian and wicked procedure. We commented also in these columns on the subject. Now the attempt to introduce the matter in the House of Lords has taken place and, we are relieved to state, failed to find adequate support. The press gave a satisfactory report of the debate. Lord Denman, President of the above Society, supported the motion and said that there were Members on both sides of the House on the list of supporters. The Archbishop of York strongly opposed the motion and stated that he had probably visited as many dying and incurable people as anyone in the House excepting doctors. It was not through lack of sympathy that he found himself in opposition. This is an important expression of opposition to the enthusiasts for euthanasia, as they claim to have charitable and sympathetic consideration for their suffering fellow beings. If ever there was false charity, it is exercised by them. The Archbishop further said, “What about the feeble-minded and hopelessly crippled? Germany placed her feet on the slippery slope, and eventually applied it to large numbers of people.” Lord Horder, extra physician to the King, opposed the motion also, and among other things, declared, “Although the phrase ‘incurable disease’ fell glibly from the lips, it was a fact that the disease which was incurable to-day was cured next year. Doctors had never possessed so many means of relieving pain. Lord O’Hagan, speaking as a surgeon, recalled a case where a patient was pronounced incurable by a team of doctors. He had the pleasure, 12 months afterwards, of certifying him as fit for light work. In his opinion, euthanasia was an an admission of failure and a counsel of despair. Lord Haden-Guest said, “I feel a sense of outrage that this has been brought forward. Euthanasia was a horrible idea, and I hope the House will reject it utterly.” Viscount St. Davids thought it would open the doors to those who did in fact commit murder. The Lord Chancellor, Viscount Jowitt, for the Government, the legal profession, and for himself, also spoke with a sense of responsibility. He said, “You are dealing here with human life, and I believe in the sanctity of human life. The doctrine of ‘putting people out’ would have most serious consequences on the criminal law. I hope I shall never live to see it introduced into this country.” Lord Chorley withdrew his motion and the debate concluded. We should be thankful to God that there are still men of rank, intellect and moral back-bone to oppose and reject such a diabolical and unscriptural proposal. May it never be heard of again in the House of Lords or the House of Commons. As a footnote we may state that in October, 1950, it was made public that the World Medical Association voted in New York to condemn “mercy killing” (euthanasia). A resolution declared that euthanasia was “contrary to the public interest and to medical principles as well as to natural and civil rights.”
A Correction.
In the issue December 8th, 1950, of the Christian, a widely read periodical, it was recorded, under the heading, “Approach to Union,” that “The Free Presbyterian Church Assembly has made a request to the Free Church of Scotland for the establishment of closer relations,” etc. This should have read, “The Free Presbyterian Church of Australia.” This Church has no connection with the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland, whose supreme Court is the Synod.
Princess Margaret and Protestant Protests.
The Daily Mail of 9th December, 1950, published a review of “The Royal Family,” a new biography just then published. The headlines to this review were: “Princess Wrote of ‘Fanatics’—After Visit to the Pope.” The reviewer refers to the fact that the Princess wrote of her visit to the Pope when she was on her Italian holiday tour, thus: “The visit was furiously denounced by some of those small groups of Protestant fanatics in England and Scotland who think that religious differences preclude ordinary social courtesy.” It was exceedingly bad taste, to say the least of it, on the part of the author of the biography, Mr. Dermot Morrah, to have included this insulting and uncalled-for quotation from the pen of the young Princess. For Her Royal Highness to write thus of sincere Protestant subjects of this Protestant Realm, over which her father, His Majesty the King, reigns, was the action of one lacking even a modicum of appreciation of her own position, as a member of the Royal Family, substantially supported by grants from the Exchequer of a professedly Protestant State. Her father’s throne is founded on Protestant principles whereby the Pope is disowned. The true Protestants of Scotland and England are no fanatics, but among the most loyal supporters of the Throne, which Throne is viewed by the Pope as that which ought to be subservient to his fanatical and utterly false claim to wield not only universal spiritual power, but temporal authority also over all kings, princes and civil powers wherever such exist. It is the Pope who is the real fanatic, and Princess Margaret would know that to her cost if he had in reality the power he claims for himself. The Pope is anti-Christ; and the enemy of Protestant Britain, the Protestant Throne, and Protestants everywhere. Protestants are heretics worthy to be burned in the view of the Pope. Princess Margaret, as a nominal Protestant, was a heretic when she visited the Pope, even although she was attired in black for the deplorable occasion. Let Princess Margaret learn that it is the Pope who is a fanatic, and one all the time.
A New Substitute for the Gospel.
Rev. Harold Cockburn, of the Church of Scotland, Dumfries, has been reported in the press as a minister who preaches “visual sermons.” He engages a large cinema for his purpose. Last November, on the Lord’s Day, his theme was, Paul and Silas and the conversion of the jailor. He was assisted by amateur actors, made use of costumes, spotlights, music and all other means associated with a stage production. Mr. Cockburn is convinced that this new technique will be needed when television comes. He says, “The time is past when people can concentrate for even 20 minutes on words alone.” Mr. Cockburn states that of course the preaching of the Word must hold the central place. And so on. O! how we are drifting faster and faster away from the example of the Lord Jesus Christ and the pattern of the Apostles as to how the glad tidings and doctrines of the Gospel are to be brought before a sin-benighted world! The short 20 minutes read sermon has been the rule in many Scottish pulpits for many years now. The people would not listen to longer discourses in most quarters. And now Mr. Cockburn is discovering that the spiritually dead people of Scotland are becoming ten times tired of the dead, dry essays read as substitutes for the full gospel of God’s grace. Therefore something must be done. That something is not a return to a faithful, full and evangelical preaching of the Gospel of Christ, to unconverted men and women, having in view their conversion by the power of the Holy Spirit. That something is an ultra modern step forward into the realm of the world to find and employ worldly men and means, to present pictorially stories from the Bible. What will the next step be by such worldly wise ministers? A declaration that there is no necessity for any preaching of the Word of God at all, not even for 20 minutes. The devil leads gradually, but surely, those who are his dupes, to ultimately abandon any regard at all for the preaching of the Word. “Preach the Word,” writes Paul to Timothy—not, “Play-act the Word.” The flood of iniquity and worldliness rolls in upon the visible Church of Christ to-day. When will the Spirit of the Lord lift up a standard against it? The Lord knows the answer to this.
A Yearning for D.D.s.
Recently we read in a professedly evangelical denominational magazine a lamentation and bemoaning of the tardiness of our Scottish Universities in recognising the outstandingly brilliant scholarship of one of that denomination’s theological professors, having negligently left it to a Canadian University to bestow the much-coveted reward of the honorary academic distinction of a doctorate in divinity. When one considers the sacrifice of principle involved in coquetting with powerful Modernist denominations that have it in their power to commend candidates, from professedly evangelical churches, for honorary academic distinctions, such as D.D.s, one feels that such professedly evangelical ministers are as irresponsibly flippant and indifferent, in selling their fidelity to principle for a mere mess of academic pottage, as truant schoolboys chasing a will o’ the wisp. Breaking off relationship with, and financial support of, the National Bible Society of Scotland, once it broke its own constitutional rules relative to the publication, exclusively, in English, of the Authorised Version of the Bible, is very much the same as breaking off ecclesiastical relationship with the Modernist Church of Scotland, yet this simple duty is not to be expected of professed evangelicals who yearn for such academic display. May one be permitted to remind all such of what Rev. C. H. Spurgeon said about Billy Bray in this connection:—”Many orators and doctors in divinity look very small by the side of Billy Bray, if we estimate ministers by their results in being instrumental in converting immortal souls, and they will look smaller still when the souls thus saved by poor humble speakers shall shine forth like stars, and their own rhetorical fame and boasted learning shall be as darkness.” Such as thus vaingloriously yearn for academic distinctions, at the expense of fidelity to principle, are generally ecclesiastical advocates and leaders in blurring and obliterating the eternal distinction between truth and falsehood.—J. P. MacQueen.