Church of Scotland Building for Roman Catholics.
The Kirkcaldy Presbytery of the Church of Scotland approved, in May, the sale of Logan-Martin Church, Leslie, and its hall to the Roman Catholic authorities for £1,400. After stating that there was no other offer received, ex-Provost Forrester said, “I think the feeling is that it is more desirable to have the church continued as a place of worship rather than see it converted for some other purpose.”
Provost Forrester did not seem to understand or appreciate that the Church in Roman Catholic hands would perpetuate the blasphemy of the Mass and other R.C. idolatrous practices in this land of the Reformation through John Knox and others. So-called Protestants and Presbyterians are, as such, asleep in many cases.
Girls and Crime in Croydon.
Croydon Probation Officer, in her annual report in April last, states that three times more girls have been brought before Croydon Juvenile Court in the previous 12 months than in the former year. “In many cases the girls have been closely associating with youths and men in groups where a general lack of conformity to law or to decent standards of living is approved,” she reports. Here we have the case of a district in moral decay as far as a percentage of the young is concerned. Such a state of matters, no doubt, obtains in many other parts of the nation. To us the underlying reasons are no Bible, no religion, no Sabbath, no parental control in the home. This state of affairs began with a departure from Scriptural religion and morals on the part of many parents, grandparents and great-grandparents, right throughout the nation. Truly our backslidings are many and the fruits thereof grievous.
Dancing Show in Cathedral Cancelled.
Bishop C. Bardsley, of Coventry, made plans in April for a ballet show to be performed in the ruins of the bombed Coventry Cathedral to gather money. As readers have seen in the press, the Lord’s Day Observance Society opposed this worldly and carnal breach of the law of the Sabbath, as set forth in the moral law and this nation’s legislation. The Bishop for several reasons had to cancel the whole unseemly business. But the deplorable fact is that the Bishop, a professed leader of the people in Christian principles, is recorded as being as full of animus and bitterness against the Lord’s Day Observance Society as irreligious, materialistic business men of the world who are opposed to all restrictions by laws relative to the Lord’s Day. The Bishop said, among other things, “I hope the secretary of the Society has not heard the last of the protest of the great mass of ordinary people throughout the country who dislike the present outworn legislation and who will seek to change it.” In other words, the Bishop is out to support the cry today among the backsliding masses of Britain to break down all barriers against transgression of the Fourth Commandment. Then likely he and his clergy will have the audacity to join with serious minded people in deploring the abandonment of the Church and religious worship by the great mass of the people, when this question may be raised, as it is from time to time. Let the Bishop learn: No Christian Sabbath, no Christianity. People in other places other than Coventry, if imbibing the Bishop’s teaching, can go to ballet shows in London, etc., on the Lord’s Day, and believe it to be an act of worship, and ignore services in Churches where the Word and Gospel of God are reputed to be heard. Here we have another case of “Blind leaders of the blind.” In a leading article in The Scotsman, the action of the Bishop and Cathedral authorities was supported and the point of view of those who desire the conservation of the Sabbath criticised. The article argued that the action of the Lord’s Day Observance Society was wrong. The secular art of ballet in obtaining money for cathedral furnishings, performed in cathedral ground on the Sabbath, was referred to as follows: “Money given in this way could fairly be looked on as a sacrifice towards the rebuilding.” And again: “If the Arts, properly used, properly regarded, are not fit for the Sabbath, have they a rightful place in human life at all?” Without our favouring such as ballet at all, should everything lawful on week-days be thus right and proper on the Lord’s Day? Surely not by the elementary standards of Scripture. The Scotsman leader writer seems to have had no regard for divine revelation and standards. And yet, Scotland was once famed for observance of the Sabbath, and it is a pity The Scotsman did not take the side of the Christian and Scottish Sabbath in this Cathedral business.
Causes for Cruelty to Children.
The Earl of Mansfield said at Perth on the 10th of April that the increase in cases of cruelty to children, in the midst of the Welfare State, shows that it is not material causes, but spiritual ones we have to face. He also said: “Unfortunately, there is no sign of the spiritual revival we need.” How true and seasonable his words are!
Church of Scotland Congregation Purges Communion Roll.
The minister and kirk session of St. Mary’s Church of Scotland, Kirkintilloch, decided recently to remove from their communion roll members who had absented themselves from communion for three years without good reason, or had otherwise shown their indifference. This is only a delayed step in the way obviously unconverted and worldly members should be dealt with. If most of the members in the Church of Scotland were dealt with according to Scriptural discipline, a large majority would lose their membership. Unconverted and spiritually ignorant professors of religion bring added guilt upon themselves and assist in ruining the visible Church of Christ in our land.