"A CHRISTIAN TEACHER."

Evening Star, Issue 7610, 12 May 1888, Page 2

"A CHRISTIAN TEACHER."

TO THE EDITOR. Sir,— lt seems I was mistaken in supposing your correspondent to be a lady, whom my feelings as a gentlemen required me to treat with delicacy. Now lam told on his own authority that he is a middleaged man who has for many years past been teaching that “bitterness, wrath, clamor, and evil-speaking” are to be put away. This account of himself must appear to anyone who reads his letter rather hard to digest. Instead of putting away “bitterness, wrath, clamor, and evil-speaking,” he has poured out in the letter such a voluminous sample of these articles that I am at a loss to know whether he teaches his principles as the old Spartans taught their sons sobriety—by showing them specimens of drunken helots—or whether he is merely infested by the spirit of the man he seems to admire, who professes one thing while he believes and practises another. Although not wishing to burden your columns, bis letter is such a curiosity in the way of “bitterness, wrath, clamor, and evil speaking,” that I present your readers with selections, as I am sure he will “ take the cake ” at any competition in that line with younger or less practised hands. Here they are; “ Rash and untruthful assertion “ his own uncharitable feelings “repetition of his calumniation“ no one who has a real regard for truth would,” etc.; “ prosecution is persecution, and nothing 1 else and finally he reaches the climax by suggesting that I may illustrate the error of Salmond’s “probation after death” by being eternally damned. I think you will agree with me, Mr Editor, that the force of fury could no further go. Even Macbeth, when about to give his final quietus to Duncan, mercifully left his future undecided, as he said : Hear it not Duncan, (or it is a knell That summons thee to Heaven or to Hell. With one whose moral feelings are so perverted as those of your correspondent “ A Christian Teacher,” it is not surprising to find such confusion of thought and inattention to the facts of the case as his letter presents. No one says (as he supposes I do) that a minister, after signing the Westminster Confession, is not at liberty to change his opinion. The moral obliquity lies in concealing the change and retaining the office, which implies in all who hold it, and so long as they hold it, adherence to the Confession. Still, I should hope your correspondent, with all his obtuseness on this point, will scarcely venture to defend as morally correct the conduct of a minister, after having changed his views of the doctrines of the Confession, and after having preached totally different opinions, going to a new church and there publicly signifying his adherence to that Confession. The light way in which “ A Christian Teacher ” seems to excuse Dr Salmoud’s mode of representing Christ and His teaching may fairly suggest a doubt as to the right of your correspondent to assume such a title as he has chosen. As I disapprove, however, of personalities, I leave that for his private consideration. I close with returning to him, as a well meant advice from me, the words which he hurled at my head by way of a threat —poor man : “ Perhaps ‘ A Christian Teacher will hesitate before be again attributes to everybody else in the church his own uncharitable feelings.”—l am, etc., A Presbyterian - . Dunedin, May 12.