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April 10, lOlil J T H E I
Editorial I
The nature and relation to the law of the
Church of in thesi deliverances will be practically
before the next General Assembly. In
view of this, it will be well for commissioners
to make a careful study of the subject. The
whole matter was "threshed out" in the
church some thirty years ago.
ine record 01 anotner church year has now
been made up. What part lias each one of us
had in making it! Many look with trembling
interest to the bringing together of the figures,
for some difficulties have encompassed us the
past year. But all who have tried to do their
duty should feel that God will take care of the
work and will bless the efforts of all who have
been true to Him and loyal to the church.
"I am sorry, but I can do nothing. The calls
on me are so many that it is impossible to meet
them." Did any pastor, or any worker in good
causes, ever hear words of this import? And
have they ever found the class of people who
use them constantly ready to respond to anything?
Do they not almost invariably express
a condition on the part of the person,
rather than in the number or character of the
calls? Experience will tell that the answer
they convey and the spirit they show are
much more chronic than the calls or the outside
needs.
If the moderator of the Assembly is to be
passed around and travelled and feasted and
toasted and made a regular itinerant, as Dr.
Carson, and to lesser extents, others before
him, in the Northern church, he ought to have
a salary and a large appropriation for expenses.
With these, on top of the honors of the
position, it will be more sought after than ever.
Regular campaigns for the place will be instituted,
and such as will eclipse most of those of
aspirants for secular office.
The severe winter, which seems still so reluctant
to let go its grip, has been very hard
upon every department of work and business.
It has made home expenses appreciably greater,
business smaller, and some lines of activity
and means of support almost impracticable.
Newspaper men have felt the effect in no small
degree, and our own among the number. If
our subscribers will now come to the rescue
and help us along, they will show their friendliness
in a most practical way.
The effort which the General Assembly is
making to rid itself of the hearing of judicial
cases in open Assembly, while at the same
time it does full justice to all appellants
and complainants, is worthy of commendation.
The purpose is good, and if the church as a
whole will endorse the effort, the end can be
accomplished. The Assembly's Judicial Com
mission proposed, and now before the Presbyteries
for action, is t. movement in that direction.
It may not be perfect, but it surely looks
the right way and for that reason should have
earnest consideration of the church at large.
The least that the General Assembly can do
in the "Sinnott Case" is to hear the reasons
"*ivt hi guiutriii/N lur a re-neaniig, as ine application
for such a re-hearing comes from Presbyteries,
a Synod and individuals. . The church
is the last body on earth that should allow the
charge of injustice to rest against it?to shut
the door tight in the face of such an application,
and not even to hear the reasons for it,
'EESBYTERIAN OF THE SO
Votes and
because, forsooth, a previous Assembly has
passed upon the case would be regarded by
many as injudicious.
A letter from the presiding officer of one of
our church institutions. ancomnRnvinc p?nh
catalog issue, has the following very important
questions and remarks: "Should our candidates
attend our own institutions or not? If
not, what are they for? Should Presbyteries
exercise authority in this matter or not? The
president of one of our seminaries said, publicly,
that the large majority of our candidates
who attend seminaries outside of our own territory,
do not return to fill the home pulpits.
It is also said that our candidates, who attend
seminaries not under the control of our church,
are becoming advocates of the union of the
Northern and Southern Presbyterian churches.
Is this true? If true, is it desirable?" These
are questions which one may well ponder.
On another page will be found an article
furnished 1)V Dr S Tj Mnrrio nn "TTnirtn iirUV.
the United Presbyterians." An informal conference
between appointed representatives of
that church and our own was recently held at
Pittsburg. The harmony and cordiality expressed
seem to justify further conference between
committees and some recognition by
our General Assembly. Closer relations with
the Associate Reformed Church is under consideration
by the same committees. Unity of
doctrine and belief in the inerrant authority
of the Scriptures, as the basis of doctrine, afford
a principal ground for organic union. The
three churches named seem to possess this "basis
of ecclesiastical fellowship. The principle
of unity in essentials, liberty in non-essentials
and charity in all things, might be prudently
invoked in the consideration of the proposal.
A plan of co-operation and fellowship might
secure, for the present, the ends to be desired.
Unless churches are practically unanimous in
their preference for corporate union with other
churches, experience shows that such union,
not only outrages the convictions and rights of
the minority, but produces doctrinal and
spiritual decline.
Criticism and censoriousness are two accomplishments
of doubtful quality, widely distributed
and immensely overworked.. They are
easily acquired and their cultivation does not
impress the average mind as nnprmm Thm* o~o
sometimes regarded as marks of genius and certainly
have their appropriate place, but they
are more commonly the resort of mediocrity.
An instance of injudicious criticism is related
of a certain divine who took up a reproach
against his neighbor, Dr. Joseph Parker, the
London preacher. It is related that Dr. Parker
had preached in a certain orphanage on behalf
of the institution, to its great gain. The following
year a preacher of his own denomination,
a good and renowned man, but one not above
professional envy, while at the same place for
the same purpose remarked to the secretary,
"You had Parker last year!" "Yes." "That
would cost you a pretty sum?twenty pounds,
I suppose t" "It was the exact sum which passed
between us." "I thought so; mean fellow!"
"i beg your pardon," quoth the secretary; "I
said that was the sum which passed between us;
T did not say it was what it cost ns, for the Doctor
returned the cheque as a contribution to the
Orphanage!'* There was fine tact in this gracious
defence, for the fault-finding minister had,
of course, to return his also!
UTH ; (481) 9
Comments
NOTES IN PASSING.
BY BERT.
John Wesley says, "I dare no
Fretting, more fret than I dare cruse and
swear." The reason Wesley felt
this way was because he was in the hands of
God, and he knew God had a plan for his life,
winch lie would work out in the most beautiful
and harmonious perfection, if not interfered
with, and he knew that, if he, in his ignorance,
interjected any of his own human inventions,
he would spoil the plan and bring
unhappiness to himself. Wesley also knew
that a believing -pint was a great lifter of
burdens. A man who looks at his trials
through eyes, suffused with love for God, sees
them diminish in size and lose much of the
fierceness of aspect they had, moreover they
often vanish away like objects seen through
a reversed telescope. Fretting is not only unbecoming,
but impossible to one who truly
loves the Lord. It shifts the burden from the
shoulders of One who is able to bear it to one
who is not, and that is unjust to both.
Christ can save the world without me, but I
can't afford to let Him do it.
Sinners will never know that Christ came to
save them unless some saved sinner breaks
the news to them.
If Christ is to be the Light of the world
somebody must carry the lamp.
Christ did not tell his disciples to pray for
a harvest, but that God would send forth
laborers into his harvest. If we furnish the
laborers, he will furnish the harvest. And the
harvest will always be equal to the quality and
quantity of the laborers.
Do not so enshroud yourself with tomorrow's
clouds that you shiver in today's sunshine.
Some people are so built that they cannot
give a cup of cold water without spilling most
of it on you.
We determine the size and quantities of our
blessings. For "according to our faith" is it
unto us. Great faith cannot be impoverished;
small faith cannot be enriched, because small
faith always has discontent.
Faith grows, not by praying, but by trust
ing. Just as strength grows by working.
To be conformed is to be deformed; to be
transformed is to be reformed.
The Scriptures teach not simply what we are
to believe, but what we are to do. We read them
to little purpose if we find no work in them for
us to do.
The shame of it is inexpressible; that is, of
the federal government's partnership with the
liquor traffic. Not only does it legitimize the
conveyance of whiskey into States which havA
outlawed its sale, and sell its licenses to dealers
to whom those States forbid liberty to engage
in traffic, but it permits the outlawed traffic
on its navigable streams, so that a saloon may
be set up, to corrupt the people near by, on a ,
neutral line as it were in the very midst of prohibited
territory. ^