THE REIGN OF CANT.

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

THE REIGN OF CANT.

TO THE EDITOR. S/u,—l thought surely that “ A Christian Teacher ” could not possibly survive Saturday night last, but it seems I was wrong. Well, well, ho may prove useful, like Dan Quilp’s figurehead, as a mild sedative—you can batter his iicad with the poker ; no fear of the brains. This middle-aged, lowly evangelist and Christian teacher puts me in mind of a very homely scene I once saw. A bullock was being put on board a steamer, much against its will. It planted its forefeet in such a way that nothing short of screwing its tail oil' would move it. So here; nothing alleged against this good man’s Dagon moves him—it is right and noble and true if only Salmond does it or says it. “ A Christian Teacher ” maunders and dodders along over nine solid inches of your columns, attributing all sorts of malice to “ A Presbyterian.’’ Does bo not sec that in spending Ids strength—small enough in all conscience—in this way be is only showing bis folly ? That certainly will not whitewash his idol Salmond. Like the sign-painter who wrote “ This is a lion,” this weakling says he has been severe, and he justifies it blasphemously by citing Christ’s example; but his severity after all is only shoddy. He is hardly such heavy metal as my former simile indicated—viz., a frog with a bulrush joining the fray. Will this very pious teacher tell us on what Christian principle or principle of honor his embodiment of the virtues so suddenly developed in this “largcrhope ” direction when he thought himself out of the clutches of the Presbytery ? Let him also tell us what his paragon meant when, after being chosen for the chair he now sits in, he said they might by and by hear him teach frightfully unorthodox tilings. Did lie never road in Dr Salmond’s pamphlet that for thirty years the latter has held more or less these doctrines, and for all that he accepted a billet here whore to ins clear knowledge he was expected to teach the opposite. Of course “A Christian Teacher’s” moral squint is so excessive that he can see nothing wrong in this, and I don’t expect him to sec anything wrong in it; hut that will not prevent mo and others from thinking that his mental and moral blindness is so great that he docs not know he is blind. He advises “ A Presbyterian ” ; let me advise him. Give up your cant and speak out like a man—as you say you are no woman, which I, as well as “ Presbyterian,” at first thought you were ; leave personalities alone and take warning by this example that the bandying of personalities and vile insinuations is a dangerous thing.—l am, etc., A Layman. Dunedin, May 15.