The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and Echo. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 1883.

Auckland Star, Volume XXI, Issue 4130, 27 September 1883, Page 2

The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and Echo.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 1883.

For tho cause that lacks assistance, For tho wrong that needs ruslahiuco, For the future In the distance, J And thu good tlint wo can do.

That tho members of the Sots Church, Melbourne, should have seceded from the Presbyterian body becausoofthe threatened prosecution of their pastor for heresy, is ft clear proof of their activesympathy with tho Rev. Charles Strong and with his optniohs ; and tho petition of tho Members of tho Ladies' District Visiting Society (mostly poor people bonctitted by the labours of Mr Strong)is undoubted evidence that, if heterodox in his ideas, the rev. gentleman is thoroughly sound in practical Christian work. But neither of theee facts, nor both combined, provo in any way that Mr Strong is a martyr or that tho Presbytery aro persecutors. They go to show;, however, that M t Strong is a man well fitted to win tho affections of a community, and able powerfully to impress them; and if ho was leading people astray with false doctrine, thero is all tho greater reason why the Presbytery should exorcise its authority and forbid his doing bo in their name ally longer. Later Melbourne papers to hand indicate that tho head and front of Mr Strong's offending is much more serious than that involved in his views on the Sabbath question, though former statements made it appear that • the latter formed the immediate cause of action. Tho Rev. Mr McEachrnn, who accepted tho r6le of prosocutor by libel, gave notice of motion to the following effect: —"l beg to give notico that at next meeting of Presbytery I shall charge the Rev. Charles Strong with promulgating and publishing heretical and unsound doctrines by his action in connection with tho rocont lecture by Mr Higinbotham, and otherwise; also with being guilty of teaching and conduct tending to destroy tho order, unity, and peace of the church ; also, with tho failure to assert, maintain and defend the doctrine of tho church when it was in his power to do so ; and further, with failure to comply with tho instruction of the Presbytery to givo prominence in his teaching to the incarnation, the atoninc life and death, and tho resurrection and ascension of our Lord."

In face of this notice of motion, Mr Strong tendered his resignation from tho ministry and charge, and, however this action may be construed by partisans, thorc can be no doubt that it amounts to an admission of the truth of tho charges, or alternately toa confession of great pusillanimity and insensibility to duty on his part. If Mr Strong believed himself to be in the right, he ought to have contested every inch of ground; and on tho othor hand, if ho knew that ho was violating his vows and breaking the rules of the Church, he was acting n most contemptible part, unworthy of any man of uprightness or independence We at oace acquit Mr Strong of the latter suppositions charge, and admitting his sincerity and honesty, are compelled to conclude that he fully approved of the lecture recently delivered under his presidency by Judge Higinbotham, in Scots Church, and ignored the instruction of the Presbytery as to those doctrinal points to which he was enjoined to give prominence. It is a complete evasion of the point at issue to raise the question of the truth or error of the Presbyterian form of creed. The sole question at issue was this—Did Mr Strong teach and maintain those doctrines which he was bound to uphold by every consideration., commercial as well as moral ?

That he did not do this is presumed from:, his action in evading free inquiry; but proof positive ia to bo found in his attitude with regard to the lecture on " Science and Religion" lately delivered by Mr Justice Higinbotham. That lecture, delivered in Scots Church, was presided over by Mr Strong, who at the close expressed his gratification with ■ the remarks of the lecturer and his personal indebtedness to him for having agreed to speak. A few extracts will indicate the tendency and scope of the lecture :—" In all countries professedly Christian the laity evince a growing and profound distrust of all Church systems of religious and moral belief. ... . . What, then, is the cause? I believe that the hest answer to this question will be found in the additions that have been mado by modern scienco to human knowledge. . . . . The evidence yielded by the earth's strata points with reasonablo certainty to

the conclusion that man has existed on tho earth during a period anterior to history of about 200,000 years, and that tho age of the earth itsolf must bo measured, not by thousands of years, but by scores and oven hundreds of millions of years, 1 belicvo that not only is there no opposition between modorn science and religion (or nntumj religion, as it U somot"-"* vaguely and in-ioeui-'i-b ualleclj, b«t tiiftt there is no rVOsition botwern modßVn science and that system of religion which was communicated to the world bytheFounder of Christianity.

i . . . . Tho Christif.H religion has existed for moro than 1,800 years; the religion of Christ has yet to be tried. . . .

If wo except the first articles in tho earliest and the least exacting creed, tho Apostles' Creed, which is a Superfluous repetition, wo shall find scarcely anything in the creeds and Standards, increasing as they multiply in the nuinbe'v anil dp'pvossivoness of their arbritvaiy. d^giiias, that is not an unauthorised addition to the primitive .simple doctrines Sumo of the art-cles of these unauthorised creeds have been undermined by recent seienco." The lecturer goes on to mention among tho undermined beliefs " thu ancient tradition that man was created perfect, that the first man so created fell by his own iict, and thereby introduced death for the first time into tho world, and entailed hereditary guilt and moral ruin upon all posterity." Now, all this may or may not bo true, but it is palpably not Presbyterian doctrine— being in fact completely subversive of what are considered the fundamental truths of Christianity* as held by every denomination, from the Abyssinian, Greek, and Roman Churches, down to tho Salvationists and Annihilationists. Yet these are the views which Mr Strong heard with approval and commended to his Presbyterian flock, and anyone who imagines himself in tho position of the Presbytery can conceive how gross and scandalous was the outrage Involved. Ml1 Higinbothain'a religious \'ie\vs, Wo tako it, arc as wellknown in Victoria as Mr Robert Stout's are in Now Zealand; and what, for instance, would the Wesleyan body think or do if tho Rev. Mr Reid were to offer Mr Stout tho uso of the Pittstreet Church in which to deliver a lecture on Freothought? Vet tho case would bo an exact parallel to that which is now agitftting Melbourne ; and tho.so who cond&inn tho Presbyterian system and creed, as if they wore responsible for the hubbub which has been caused, would do well to look a littlo closer and see if a higher and

more important principle is not involved. Tho action of the Melbourne Presbytery is not in defonco of some non-oasontia) or Puritanical article of the Confession, but it is in vindication of the central idea of the Christian religion against tho open attacks of Ffcethought and Agnosticism. How tho matter is viewed by the opponents of Christianity may bo learned from the fact that the lecture on "Science and Religion" has been published in this colony in cheap form by tho " Lyceum " printer, Mr Josopli Bra'ithwaito, Dunedin. This being .to, it is clear that tho attitude of Christendom on this point should bo one of sympathy and encouragement towards tho Presbytery of Melbourne for the bold stand it has made in defonco of tho faith which has boon uucli a mighty regenerating power in tho past, and which has by no means lost it.s power to cement, civilise, and elevate the masses of humanity.