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y y 8 THE PRESBYTERIAIs we have tired the people with our pretensions to universal domination. The best thing for us will be to humble" ourselves. It is no use to harden superciliously against facts. We had better renounce our dreams and illusions. France is no more Roman Catholic, and personally. 1 have no desire to see her return to the bosom of the Church. There are better things in store for her." MM " i ins confession reminds us of a statement in the "Missionary Review of the World*' for December. 1907 (p. 946), that within eight years one thousand Roman Catholic priests in France have left their church and ministry because of unbelief in the teachings of that church. Xot all of these have become Protestants; some not a few, have avowed infidelity. A writer in the "American McAll Record," December. 1907 (p. 18), says: "On an average two hundred priests are leaving the Catholic church every year, the most of t^iem unfitted for practical work. A society called 'Work of Priests' helps them to find employment. A small number of these ex-priests have developed into godly and successful pastors." I'rancc lias a population of 39,000,000. Of these there are not more than 650.000 Protestants, and allowing for Jews and other non-Christian sects, there remain about 38.ooo.ocx5 nominal Roman Catholics, but the priests themselves confess that at the outside not more than 4.000.000 can be said to be following their teachings in any way. The people are said to be drifting away from all belief in the church and from the control of the priests. One of their priests states that while in some villages a number still attend mass, in others the church was so deserted that on Sunday mornings the attendance consisted only of the priest, his servants and the sexton, while in som; churches grass was growing between the stones 0:1 the floor. It is sometimes heard, "We do believe in God, but we do not believe in the priests." M. Boissonnas, secretary of the Societe Centrale, recently reported that in some parts of the country no religious ceremony has been held for ten years. BLESSED BY THE CHURCH. Among the mountains of Switzerland, where the difficulties and dangers of travelers are great, they have a way of binding a group of adventurers together. Before they commence the slippery and perilous ascent a strong cord is bound around the waist of each, and all are then tied together, so that every one helps the others; and if a brother slins the nthprc ^..11 1-:? r_, wt.iv.s |' 1111 mill up clgillll. Just so helpful have the ties of church relationship been found to multitudes of members as they have felt the uplift of mutual sympathy, the onpush of united effort, and the inspiration of a common purpose and love; and there are so many difficulties in the Christian life that we really need all the help we can get. The church may have some faults; but we venture the opinion that seldom will you find a professing Christian who will not sjy that he was strengthened and helped by uniting himself with God's people. Blessed, very blessed, are they who find a home in God's house.?G. B. F. Hallock. ?nytnmg less than Deity is powerless to save from sin. I OF THE SOUTH. April 14, 1909 JERUSALEM. By Margaret H. Barnett. A city old, by mountains circled round," Wherein the temple stood, To which God's people went, and where they found Earth's greatest, highest good; For situation beautiful, They wept, who, far from it, in exile long were kept. A city fair, God's glory is its light, It hath 110 need of sun; There fall on it no gloomy shades of night, It3 day is never done. Within itn wails no stately temple stands, It needeth not a temple made with hands. Without thy gates, Jerusalem the olden, One died upon the tree, T~ ? "* v,-t.c iu.v isui.es, Jerusalem the golden," To all, front sea to sea, . Whoever on his name divine believeth, Stained by sins scarlet, though they be. Thy pearly gates, O Zion, open wide, To nil those trusting in the crucified. ALTAR TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. By Rev. Edward E. Smith. Men once thought the rising of the sun and the shining of the stars were miraculous. They thought the rain and snow, the cold and heat were miraculous manifestations of God. They saw God in all the forces of nature But the scientist has come and explained away the miracle of the wind, the rain, the heavenly bodies. One by one he has shown the forces of nature to be under control of fixed and intelligible laws, and explained away their mystery. He has thus thrown down many altars to the unknown God. The scientist of today has made sceptics of many who worship only the unknown God, whose idea of God is that ho i<? alwave nnK' ?1-.~i- ' ... -j ~ ... mm. which us mysterious or unknown. Science is more and more robbing such people of their God. To explain that a phenomenon is simply natural takes their God out of it for them. For example, perhaps the great majority of people have refused to see God in the ordinary medical means of healing the sick, because we have found out the natural laws that underlie our medicines. While, if a Christian Scientist or Mental Healer comes along and produces a cure of disease by a means which is shrouded in mystery, these many people can be led to' acknowledge that the healing is of God. They have an altar, but it is only to the unknown God. We must preach the God of law as never before, since > the scientist is showing us the law under all natural phenomena. We must preach God of the sunshine and the rain, of gravity and the electric current, of medicine and fresh air. of health and life, Xot-the God who comes to us in the dark mystery to cure us when we are sick, hut the God who is acting in the laws of our most robust health.-We*must teach men to quitdooking for God only in the miraculous, and to behold him acting in the laws that control and uphold all his creation, the God unchangeable, the same yesterday, today and forever. "An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign." /