A DEFENCE OF PROFESSOR SALMOND.

Evening Star, Issue 7613, 16 May 1888, Page 4

A DEFENCE OF PROFESSOR SALMOND.

TO THE EDITOR. Siu,—At first sight it seems strange that, while public opinion is on the whole favorable to Professor Salmond, the expression of that opinion, as it lias appeared in the correspondence columns of the newspapers, should for the most part be unfavorable. That, of course, may be explained by the fact that Professor Salmond’s adversaries arc ministers and ex-ministers, who have been moved to the attack as much by a spirit akin to bloodthirstiness as by a zeal for what they conceive to bo truth. Shall it be thought strange, however, that they have persistently avoided the main issue ? They have charged Professor Salrnond with violating the Confession of Faith ; they have accused him of remaining in the church after he had ceased to accept the Confession in its entirety ; they have discussed complacently among themselves as to the way in which he is to be brought to the bar of the church courts ; but they have neither proved nor attempted to prove the incorrectness of his doctrine. They have simply taken for granted that he is entirely wrong, and have proceeded gratuitously to brand him as a heretic and a hypocrite. But until his arguments arc refuted, we must assume that he is right; and if thus the term heretic, in its unworthy sense, has been prematurely applied, it seems to me that the term hypocrite is also a little too hasty. If the fair vision of truth which he has brought to the eyes of the Presbyterians of Otago ho no deceitful mirage, is it not ungrateful to call him hypocrite because he has not kept it to himself, or because he waited till he was sure he saw it himself before he revealed it to others ?

Let me be frank. I believe that so long as Professor Salmond’s freedom of thought was hampered by an intimate connection with the church the doctrine he has just enunciated developed but slowly; and I believe also that when his connection with the church became less intimate his mind, more free to act, travelled more rapidly to full and passionate conviction. That is but in the nature of things, and is a perfectly natural and unconscious mental process. But I utterly deny, from what I know and conceive of Professor Salmond, that he ever preached or taught from pulpit or rostrum any doctrine lie conscientiously believed to bo false. llis opponents can only make themselves ridiculous by preferring such a charge ; but if they do, and if they can make it good, then let him he surrendered into their hands, and let him die the death.

The charge of hypocrisy involves the whole question of the relation of the church to its creed. It has by this time become an approach to immorality that the church should theoretically accept in toto an interpretation of the Bible which was made by the church of the seventeenth century. It has undergone the additional development, and acquired the additional experience of more than two centuries. Its conception of God has fundamentally changed from that held by the Puritans. It regards Him more as a Father than as a King. And God being the supreme fact of Christianity, the whole aspect of Christianity has changed . ; ii the changed e.meeption of Him. If the ehi'. Ii (ijJ.o-i.lay a "id l.fumi tbes" i ..mldertiLimm, i.crtainly ii.rnnl.iL ■ .< ••nu-d -'Dini what diiji iv(, from lii" V. i ‘..invasion, why does it Mill r> (]!!(•.•■• its mini- tors to subscribe to that majestic but merciless document? We arc told to search the Scriptures, but we are certainly not told to do so by the aid or in the light of the Confession ; and if we can discern in them any truth that honors God and consoles men, wo ought joyfully to receive it, even though it should not be found in the Confession, or should give it the lie. Again, the church, as a body, has already deserted several of the positions laid down by the Confession, because general opinion considered them untenable. A precedent

being thus created, it is unreasonable to object to the abandonment of one more position that has come to be thought untenable by a great part, if not the greater part, of the Protestant Church. Where, then, the hypocrisy of remaining in the church while disagreeing in some points with the Confession ? Whore the minister who could openly avow that doctrine of the Confession which teaches the everlasting torture of non-elcet infants, without imminent danger of having his head broken by some latter-day Jenny GeddesJ? If Professor Salmond be condemned on the sole ground of having departed from the Confession, then the Presbyterian Church of Otago and Southland out of its own mouth will condemn itself. It is a question of departing not from the Confession, but from the Bible ; and if the Confession be found to disagree with the Bible, the sooner the Confession is burnt as an effete and heretical document the better. But let it be done" quietly and decently, with due respect for its stately diction, its past usefulness, the many truths of which it is the shrine, and even for the hoary errors of which, let us hope, it will be the everlasting grave. I believe, as I said before, that public opinion is, on the whole, in sympathy with Professor Salmond. To that the rigidly orthodox would say—and I give them credit for sincerity if not for insight—that it is a melancholy sign of public depravity. But why, sir, I would ask, should any small body of mere men both censure and vilify their fellows for being disposed to accept a doctrine which reconciles the facts of heredity and environment with the fact of divine justice, which lifts a mighty paralysing fear from the human heart, and pours a glory of light into the darkest and foulest by-ways of human life? I am afraid it is because they are without that Christian charity which may often be found even among those they are pleased to call unregenerato. Being without charity, it is doubtful also whether they have that saving faith, the implanting of which they are so anxious to confine to this poor little struggle of a life. They ought, therefore, to be thankful to Professor Salmond for assuring them that, in spite of themselves, they will yet have another chance.— l am, etc., Quixotk. Dunedin, May 14.