Pagan Rite at Welcome to Duchess of Kent.
The Duchess of Kent represented H.M. The Queen on March 6th, when the Colonial territory hitherto known as the Gold Coast gained independence under the name of Ghana. Ghana is the first British African Colonial territory to become independent. At a welcoming ceremony for the Duchess on March 2nd at Accra, it was arranged that a Pagan rite would be performed before the Duchess, when a fetish priest poured a quantity of spirit on the ground as an offering to the “gods,” asking their blessing on the Duchess. Prior to this date three Gold Coast Christian Church leaders protested against this ceremony and said they would boycott this welcome ceremony if the rite was performed, because “prayers addressed to gods in whose existence Christians did not believe, and to ancestors or spirits whom Christians believe should not be invoked,” were to be included in the rite. All praise to these Church leaders for their timely and clear protest against an iniquitous and wholly unnecessary ceremony. Yet in face of this, the Accra Municipal Council refused to cancel the rite and said that “the Church leaders were pouring scorn on tradition by asking its omission.” Whoever the members of the Council were, they had scant regard for the Christian principles of Britain, who had aided the Gold Coast to attain to independence, and they had no respect for Christian Churches in the matter; and they supported idolatry and an act of grievous dishonour to God in the presence of a member of the British Royal Family.
Rev. Selby Wright and Ronald A. Knox.
Rev. R. Selby Wright is the Church of Scotland Minister of Canongate Kirk Edinburgh, and Ronald A. Knox is a pervert from Protestantism to the Roman Catholic Church and a priest of that Church. What is called the “St. Margaret’s Chapel Guild” have published a booklet on Margaret, Queen of Scotland, and her Chapel on Edinburgh’s Castle Rock. Rev. Selby Wright writes of the Chapel and Ronald A. Knox adds a note on “The Wives’ Saint.” This booklet is being sold at Rev. Selby Wright’s Church. This is the sort of thing going on within the realm of the Church of Scotland, in the city where the Covenants were signed in years past. Ronald Knox is an able propagandist for the Pope’s cause and manifestly a great enemy of even Selby Wright’s Presbyterian Church of Scotland. Such activities as herewith alluded to are not given too loud publicity, but are carried through somewhat quietly, that the evil leaven of popery may work, as it is doing, within the “lump” of the present Church of Scotland. Where are the Watchmen? There seems to be none.
Strange Attitude of Edinburgh Free Church Presbytery.
Rev. Professor D. Mackenzie, in giving his Report on Sabbath Observance and Public Questions to the Edinburgh Presbytery of the Free Church of Scotland, referred to the annual City of Edinburgh Festival of Music and Drama, etc. He said: “The Presbytery must not be regarded as disdainful of cultural affairs if it draws attention once more to the incongruity of opening the Annual Festival with a religious service on the Sabbath afternoon, and the holding of a secular concert on the evening of the same day.” Now the following statement is the strange part of the Professor’s deliverance, in our view, viz.: “It (the Presbytery) would adhere to its attitude of taking no part in the religious service which opened the Festival until this was altered” (italics ours). We take this to mean that the Edinburgh Presbytery would take part in the religious service in St. Giles, Church of Scotland, on Sabbath afternoon, as the opening phase of the Festival, if there be no secular concert on the evening of the same day, and, in our view, by so doing the Free Church would give its blessing to all the activities of a modern Vanity Fair, with a claim to culture in the fields of music, drama, ballet etc., while these activities are kept to the week-days. Further, comment by us might darken the issue; but we say to all who seek Christ for the salvation of their precious souls, keep clear of such an attitude as indicated by the Professor.
Ministerial Entertainment.
The Oban Times of date 16th February informs us that there was a particularly warm welcome at Musselburgh Highland Association’s Ceilidh on the previous Saturday night for Rev. A. D. MacLeod, from Lewis, the new minister of the Millhill Church of Scotland. The programme was the usual type of thing indulged in at those vanities. Bag-pipe music, Scots songs, country dancing, and an orchestra to provide music for the inevitable dance, contributed to the unhallowed amusement of those present.
The parson also added his own contribution to the gaiety of the evening in showing “the company the skin of a wild cat which attacked him in Glen Torridon,” and in giving “a most interesting talk on his experiences at Shieldaig, Applecross, Lochcarron and other parts of Wester Ross.”
The Rev. A. D. MacLeod was, at one time, Free Presbyterian Minister at Shieldaig where, in the exercise of his office, he should have been warning sinners against such vanities. But he turned his back on the Free Presbyterian Church and that was the beginning of his declension. For some years he was minister of the MacQueen Memorial Congregation in Inverness. While there, and engaged in a controversy in the Northern Chronicle, he made statements with reference to the Most High which made it evident that the fear of God was not before his eyes. He then departed to the Church of Scotland, and we find him in his first charge there mixed up in what bears the unmistakable stamp of being on the broad way which leadeth to destruction. It is solemn beyond expression to think of the tremendous awakening such a man will have in Eternity if the Lord will not have mercy upon him on this side of death and the grave. On the other hand, it is a mercy from heaven that none of our congregations are under the yoke of the ministry of such a man. “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us” (John 2, 19).
—D. M.