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August 7, 1912] THE F
Editorial 1
\Vn linn r n 1 mnot nnltTA^nl ~?3 _x: ^? - **
,,v ?v~. ..uiuot Uiincinai UUlUlIlCUUtlllUa OI
tli action of our last General Assembly, in its
dealing with the Romanist question, its resolution
being "that in meeting the menace of
R manism, this Assembly would recommend no
other means than the dissemination of knowledge
nml the faithful, earnest preaching of the gospel
of Christ." In the dissemination of knowledge
fine use may 'be made of the major part of the
,\d-Interim Committee's Report, which the Assembly
ordered printed in pamphlet form "for
the information of our people." It is a very
nlile and convincing paper.
Prominence does not come high. Pay over
only five dollars and you have it. There lies
before us a letter from a publishing concern of
Chicago asking us to fill in and send to it the
"data blank" which it sends us, for insertion in
its "Prominent Men of 1912," the only obligation
on our part connected with the transaction
being the "acceptance of one copy containing the
biography, payable on delivery if satisfactory."
The price per copy is five dollars. Here's an opportunity
for all who pine for prominence.
Once a year, very regularly, we receive a very
handsome letter stating that the writer takes
great pleasure in notifying us that we have been
elected (sic!) a member of the great Thus-andSo
Society, and asking our acceptance, with a
remittance of the sum of two dollars for the
monthly publication of the Society. We dare
say thousands of others are elected in the same
manner. It is stran&re that non*? of mn?
papers have adopted this method of complimenting
every one whose name they can secure, and
telling each one that on the receipt of his acceptance
of membership certified to by a remittance
of two dollars. It must pay. Otherwise
the projectors of the scheme would not keep it
up. And it indicates that there are a great many
people in the world who are willing not only to
be humbugged but even to pay for the privilege!
A fact not the less true because not generally
known and appreciated is that corn, simple, common
corn, has more to do with the regulation of
the price of food products than any other dozen
commodities put together. According as it is
scarce or abundant, high-priced or low-priced, is
living high or low. Raonn hanf ?3 -
w ??mvvx) uuibui, anu it
score of the moat common and needful things
of life are determined in price by this one product.
And what is it that increases the price of
<orn? Listen: Sixty per cent, of the 2,700,000
bushels produced in the United States last year
went to the brewers and distillers. "More corn
is being used today," reports a high authority
in the Produce Exchange, "in the manufacture
of distilled and fermented liquors than the entire
national corn crop of twenty years ago." It is
no wonder that the price of cash corn has risen
greatly in the past few years.
Pastors are liable at times to seriously con
sidfir u'^oUini. a? 1 1
(iviuci vii uui mo wui k ana worrtfiip oi
Church are effectual in the lives of the people.
Inertness, distraction, absorption with worldy
interests seem to have the mastery. Yet what
would be the stgte of the comunity if there were
no church T A significant statement was recently
made by Judge Fawcett, of Brooklyn, N. Y..
to the effect that out of nearly three thousand
People tried in his court "not one was at the
time of the alleged offence, or ever had been, an
active member of the Church." There is much
' ft E S B Y TKRIAH OF THE 80
Votes and
foolish talking and jesting by a certain class of
newspapers and other scoffers about the incon-1
1- ? ?
oioKruuics ujl cuiuou memoers; it is nevertneiess
true that the best people in any community are
the church people and thgy are the best because
of their use of the means of grace as provided
in the ordinances of God's house.
We have learned through exchanges of the
fresh honor that has come to EXr. Park P.
Floumov. of Betbesda Md Somo VPOTM OffA rw
Flournoy was made a* member of the Victoria
Institute of London because of exceptional learning
in the department of sacred antiquities, his
best known production being the treatise entitled
"Searchlight of St. Hippolitus." Later he
prepared and published a valuable paper on the
discovery and contents of sacred documents unearthed
at Elephantine, an ancient site on the
river Nile. More recently, in a competitive conil?
j~ 1-- ?1 *' I
icoi, a uauic hi. um gituiu*, ue suomiLtea 10 tne
Institute a discussion of "The Bearing of Archaeological
and Historical Research Upon the
New Testament." The laurels of that contest
were placed upon the brow of Dr. Flournoy in
competition with representative scholars of
America and Europe. The Gunning prize for
forty pounds was an incident of the award.
(Gunning is the name of the founder of the
prize fund and has no reference to the methods
of the contestants). Dr. Flournoy is the
first American to achieve this particular distinction.
The letter of notification informed
the Doctor that the honor, with its substantial
credentials, was bestowed by a unanimous vote
of the tribunal of award. In March, 1912, the
paper will be read by the author before the
Institute in London.
Ours is not the only nation in which the
friends of religious freedom are being aroused
by the aggressions of a foreign potentate known
as the pope. A correspondent of The Toronto
Presbyterian says: "Canada has been for many
years the paradise of the Church of Rome. There
is no country in the world in which she enjoys
greater liberty today. In the Province nf
Quebec, under the protection of Britain's flag,
this Church exercises many of the powers that
belong to the State. She sits as queen in our
benighted province, panoplied in her assumptions
by law. She receives from the State pretty
much what she asks and dominates this portion
of the country as the first interest *o be considered
and served." Judged by every legitimate
criterion, intellectual, material, moral and religious,
Canada is a Protestant country; yet as
in our own land, pandering politicians allow
a religious system hostile to its institutions to
usurp civil authority.
As is well known Italy is the land in which
popery is enthroned in the person of Leo X. Yet
that dignitary calls himself the prisoner of ihe
Vatican. Certain it is that his liberties are far
less in that land than in some Protestant coun
tries. ur. Alexander Kobertson, long a resident
of Italy, has written a notable book on the standing
and influence of the Catholic Church in that
land. In discussing education he says the government
enforces "a system of national education,
which is free, compulsory, secular, and lav.
No priest can contract with any child in the
matter of education between the years of six and
nine. After that age, T need not say, the child
is safe. A boy who can neither read nor write
loses all his civil rights. We have no illiterate
voting. As a matter of fact, I have never spoken
V T a (919) 9
Comment
to a boy or girl in Italy of say from eight to ten
years of age who conld not read." Speaking of
the instruction imparted in the schools the author
.says: "The text-books all bear the impriatur
of the Central Government Commission
for the Selection of Text-Books. That Commission
is prepared to examine all books written
specially for the youth of Italy, and to give its
public approval of them if it finds them worthy
of it. But there is one thing, I am quite sure,
this Commission will never be found doing. It
will never set its seal to a book that issues from
the Church. Church books of all kinds are not
only banished from all the National Schools, but
the State does what it can to prevent them fall
ug hiiu me nancte of chidren. The
reason why such text-books are thus banned, and
why the youth of the country are thus guarded
from contact with them, as they might be guarded
from plague, or leprosy, is because they are
believed to be impregnated with the seeds of
maladies worse than any that can attack the
body. When these books deal with serious subjects,
such as history, science, philosophy, and
even geography, they are all arranged to suit the
ends and interests of the Church/'
NOTES IN PASSING.
BY BEBT.
In the beginning of the 107th
Wandering. Psalm the sinner is regarded as a
homeless wanderer. Few thoughts
carry more of pathos than that of a man without
a home. No place to turn his face at the close of
a trying day where he may find rest and refreshment
for body and spirit in the bosom of a family
he can call his own. No quiet cottage home in
whose sacred shelter he can lay the trials and
burdens of the world aside and surrounded by
those who lnvp him fr?i*tva+ *1. J? *U_A e?
?. - we buiugi iiiai irei
and harden, and where he may renew his spirit
and gain new strength for the next battle.
Many men are forced to spend weeks and months
upon the road, to such a? these home exerts a
tremendous pull upon their hearts. Their visits
there are oases in the desert of life. And the
soul out of Christ is in such a case.
The "Home" instinct is found in every living
thing. The modest fern makes itself at home in
the crevices of the rocks on the shady side of the
hill. The wild geese take their flight south in
winter and return to their northern haunts in
summer. The eagle has her own eyrie; the lion
his own lair. Everything seeks its own proper
environment, and by the same law the soul inbreathed
by God seeks God and cannot know
rest until it rests in him. The idol-worship of
the pagan is proof of this truth. God made man
for himself.. So long as the soul is apart from
God so long is it homeless, miserable, restless.
And it never drifts accidently home. The
shepherd must seek the wanderer. Praise God
for a shepherd who does.
In the same psalm the soul out
Imprisoned, of Christ is likened to a hopeless
prisoner "Bound in affliction and
iron." Slavery is a bitter curse. Look at that
poor slave to drink as he turns into the door out
of which he will come after a while with all his
manhood left behind. He is a slave to the evil and
cannot break away. Or maybe he denies that he
is so hound to the habit, maybe he says he can
quit if he wants to; so much the worse, for he
who knows himself a slave and has no desire to
be free is the most abject slave of all, and but
the more strongly proves his bonds. Or again if
he insists that it does not hurt him he is still