THE RELIGIOUS WORLD.

Evening Star, Issue 11677, 8 February 1902, Page 7

THE RELIGIOUS WORLD.

IN REPLY TO CAPTAIN HUTTON. The Rev. Dr Roeeby, the well-known Congregational minister of Marrickville (N.S.W.), has been replying to Captain Hutton’s opening address on ‘ Evolution, at the opening sitting of the recent Scientific Congress at HoWt. In the course of his address the rev. doctor is reported to have said; —At the outset he spoke of Captain Hutton’s long and honorable record in connection with science in New Zealand. He recalled a controversy there twenty-six years ago on the subject of evolution, wherein Captain Hutton took a leading and distinguished part, and wherein he (Dr Eoseby) had the honor of helping him to fight the battle of science against theological obscurantism. It was interesting to notice that the thesis of the address of Captain Hutton was largely theological. It was a discussion of the question of mind outside of nature and above it, and of a spiritual universe beyond the world of sense. To both these great questions Captain Hutton gave the answer, not of agnosticism, but of religious faith. Captain Hutton’s earlier contributions to these controversies hau been marked by a sane reserve, which prevented his being carried away by extreme partisans on either side. One could recognise the same high quality in this presidential address. He recognised the limits of scientific research, and refnwad to make affirmations—or denials—beyond what wore legitimated, by the facts or the record. In his account of the origin of the conception of an invisible world he followed pretty cloaoly—perhaps too closely—the wellknown speculation's of Herbert Spencer. There was nothing in these speculations irreconcilable with the theistic position. There were foolish people who thought that to show how certain things were done was a kind of argument that God did not do them. That was the “ pzeudoa proton’ —the radically false assumption, accepted unhappily too often by both the foes of religion and its friends—which had given rise to the false conflicts and the equally false "reconciliations” between religion and science. If the thought of a spiritual universe be supposed to have first arisen out of dreams, and if primordial worship was the worship of ancestors, they could easily interpret ail this, as Captain Hutton did, as the successive “altar stairs^ which slope through darkness up to God.” Yet, he (Dr Roseby) bad always felt that Spencers undue leanings to a mechanical explanation of the universe had herein prevented hrm from recognising the possibility and the fact of direct intercourse between the som of man and the eternal. Tennyson, with a deeper and truer sense of tins, hod said; Speak to Him, for He hears, and Spirit wji.a spirit can meet. Closer is He than breathing, nearer than hands and feet.

It was satisfactory to find that Captain Hutton did not hesitate to say that results of evolution had been foreseen and provided for.” His instances—the appearance of carbon before the dawn of vegetable life; and the striking co-ordination between the human hand as a climbing organ, and that bird-life and succulent fruit which had helped to make it such—were striking examples of that wider teleology which had largely displaced the mechaaiical " design ”of Paley. The latter part of Captain Hutton’s address was. from the religious standpoint, of immense interest. He pointed out that the higher purposes of evolution were those now conspicuously in progress. The real crown of civilisation was not " happiness,” and therefore not, in the vulgar sense of the word, "utility.” but goodness. The perfect evolution of this high quality carried us “faovond the veil” of sense. And thus the‘belief that may originally have been an inference from the dreams of the savage had become the assured conviction of the philosopher of the twentieth century—that “ the snirit does not die with the body. Dr Roscbv spoke of the piofonnd satisfaction which it gave to those interested in the higher life and future destiny of man to hear how emphatically m accord with these principles of religion was this last word of contemporary science.

FRUITION. “ To have inv heart’s desire, 0 Lord, To do the deed my Lrum has planned, Nor passed till I liave plucked tno inut And offered Thee, With bn.rii’ing hand 0 XiOrd, to see the hope fahaled, And bear, as once my vnoU;-.- core; This is to throb with those who live

And are alive for evermore.'' Nay, but the cost. Give all thy heart, Tliy youth, thy power, and count it loss Thy whole is not enough to win lliat crown upon the Victor's cross. E’en Earth, to hear her tiniest r.ocd Will have the perfect flower to doc, And nourishes with martyr blood Her broods in field, and sea, and sky.

“Lot me, too, die; but let. my life Glow in the, deed I died to tree, If ’bearing cost the mortal pang, Yet let this hope survive m me. The book, the work, the cause, the name, Are vita, for I willed it so, And with a glad heart gave to them

My heritage of life below.'' Still dark the truth to thee.. But learn The Master’s word, with meaning old, And lose thy life that, thou mayst find And take again, with Joy untold. For, 10, tho living soul of thee In thy true thought is multiplied, To live for ever with the stars, Though thy base self be crucified. RUCTIONS AND RELIGION IN THE HEBRIDES. POLICEMEN BESIEGED IN A CHURCH. The men of the Hebrides take their religion with a grim seriousness, and are quite ready to set sticks whacking and skulls crabking for the faith that is in them. The reader will probably only possess a very dim idea of the ground of the quarrels which have set the Lewis Islanders in open defiance of the Law Courts Constabulary. To understand the situation it is necessary to glance at recent ecclesiastical history. A little more than a year ago the two great Presbyterian Dissenting bodies in Scotland —the Free Church and the United Presbyterian Church—united, and now form the United Free Church of Scotland. A section of the Church, mainly in the Highlands, dissatisfied with the union, and also doubtful of the orthodoxy of some of the Free Church Professors, refused to enter the union. In all, between twenty and thirty ministers out of 1,100 or 1,200 stood out. The number of their adherents in the congregations is not certain, bat they claim a good many thousands. The leaders of the minority brought an aetkm against the United Free Church, claiming all Free Church funds and church buildings, on the plea that the Free Church in the union had departed from distinctive principles. The case was decided against them in the Edinburgh Courts, but it is likely to be carried to the Lords. The dissentients in a number of cases in the Highland congregations refused to give up the church buildings to a portion of the congregations — mostly a minority—who adhered to the United Free Church, as almost all church buildings were held by trustees in the name of the whole Free Church. Actions were brought, and the Conits ordered the fabrics to be handed over to the United Free Church. A case of this kind occurred at Ness, and the Court ordered the keys of the Freen Church and the cross there to be handed over, in order that the section of the congregation adhering to the United Free Church might worship there. Duplicate keys were provided, and some of the Church leaders were willing that both sections should have the use of the building. The Dissentients, who had possession, refused, and recently deforced the sheriff’s officer, who tried to open the church door under a warrant of the Edinburgh Court. On Saturday, December 29, the sheriffs officer, aided by the constable of Inverness and a number of mainland policeman, went to the island, and, with a locksmith, proceeded to open the church doors. For a time the islanders allowed them to proceed with their work. About dude, however, brnids of men converged upon the church, and sent a volley of stones upon the constables guarding the door. The police promptly retired into the building, but several of them were badly cut and bruised before they reached the sanctuary. Tbo crowd then set to work, and speedily broke every window in the place, and battered in .the- door with. bnuLders. When the cess*-

tion of the attack occurred, the chief constable, who&a vidor was not without the better part, asked in Gaelic of the leader what he wanted. The reply was: “The police to clear off the island ”; the speaker adding that unless they did so the people of Ness would not be responsible for their lives. In the circumstances the officers wisely decided to quit the island) and the mob which attacked the church allowed them to go without let or hindrance. But detached parties of islanders stoned the police from vantage points along the route to Stornoway, and by the time the guardians of the law reached their boat scarce one could boast a whole, unbruised skin. So the islanders rest victorious, but there is talk of a military enforcement of the law as laid down by the Edinburgh Courts. If soldiers are drafted into the island there is like to he grievous bloodshed, for the Lewis and Harris population runs to more than 30,000, and though, for the greater part, they are a narrow-minded crowdthrough ignorance—there is no question of their tenacity of purpose, and no man may question their reckless courage in fighting for any cause they deem true. GLEANINGS.

Bishop head of the Anglican mission in British New Guinea, will visit Melbourne and Adelaide, en route for England. During the past year there has been a large increase of converts, and much has been done in the way of industrial training, in the acclimatisation of stock, etc. At present there is no endowment for the See, and the missionaries receive no stipend—only an allowance of £2O a year for necessaries. The bishoo is endeavoring to raise £15,000 for his work.

Dr Parker, on December 18, at bis ordinary 'Thursday mid-day service, vjhich lasts an hour, just before j,renouncing the Benediction, said: The usual mid-day service will be held next Thursday just as if Christmas Day was not the day before. Nothing whatever is allowed to interfere with the Thursday service. But I think I shall have to make an exception, and give way on the day the King is crowned. It appears that by som3 law, which I cannot explain, a Thursday has. been chosen as the time for the King’s Coronation. "God Save the King" whether it is on a Wednesday or on a Thursday. When the Rev. Di Marshall, of Melbourne, takes a holiday at the beginning <J next year he hopes that the Rev. Dr Watson (“ lan Maclaren ”) will visit Australia and act as his locum tenens

• Referring to Dr Burgess's resignation of active ministerial cnarge, the ‘ Christian Commonwealth ’ says that in taking ”P hospital work he oc«s not. cease to be a Methodist minister. He will simply be a minister without pastoral charge, like .he Rev. Dr Ballinger, in England, and many others. Without drawing any salary from the church Hr Burgess will have his Sundays free, and will he able still to give the church the benefit of his wide knowledge and great experience. The years in a Methodist minister's life when he is “elderly” but not “oid’ are becoming very difficult. We used to have largo circuits tc which such ministers were appointed as superintendents, with two or three younger ministers as colleagues. The cutting up of these circuits has done away with nearly all these appointment.';. Circuits with only one minister are snowing strong objection to grey hairs. They want a minister in nis early prime. In the meantime the supernumerary allowances are moving steadily downward, and stringent measures are being taken to keep ministers of! that fund. Dr Burgess has shown one honorable way out of the difficulty.

On a recent Sunday, while service was being conducted in a’Gippsland church, a snake crawled from under the platform behind the pulpit, and was killed by one of the congregation wira a buggy whip.

The London ‘Jewish Chronicle' of December 13 published vhe names of forty-six Jewish soldiers who have been killed in action, or have died of wounds, during the present war in .Sonin Africa, and of fortynine who have died of disease or accident. An adverse critic complains that “in his latest work, ‘The Ministry of Grace,’ *he Bishop of Salisbury lays down the view that at Rome and Alexandria the government of the church was Presbyterian up to the third century, and holds this to fe ‘ a practical basis’’ for union between Epis-

copatUaxuism, and Presbyterianism, ‘which if cue of the roost obviously necessary tasiw of English-speaking Christianity.’ ” 0f the “ magnificent meetings which have been held in Newcastle, New South Wales, to. celebrate Methodist union, the Sydney 1 Methodist * writes; “If largeness or numbers, intense and healthy enthusiasm, and unity of purpose, spirit, and action go for anything, then the moat sceptical must have been thoroughly converted to the fact that union, at leas,, in the Newcastle district, has entered the hearts of the people, and is there to stay.” Preparations are almost complete for he approaching Victoria and Tasmania Methodist Conference—the first after the union which will be opened in Wesley Church, Melbourne, at the end of February. About 450 ministers and laymen may attend the Conference, so that it will be, perhaps, the largest ecclesiastical church court ever seen in Victoria.

Dr Moorhouse, Bishop of Manchester, in a sermon preached to a crowded congregation in Manchester Cathedral on Decembsr 15, made a strong appeal on behalf of -e----ligious education. Among things he said: “ Not long ago I paid a visit to one of tbs Lancashire valleys, found, to my regret and consternation, that all r.ae young people there, whether church or dissent, were forsaking public worship. On inquiring into the cause of this I was told that the principal reason was that they occupied their Sundays in preparing then lessons for continuation and technical classes and competitive examinations. it was an object lesson. In the church there i'i a representation of the ideal Christ, and iu the schools a representation of the ideal Plato- The young people are forsaking their Christian for the pagan ideal.” The Bey. Robert L. Turner, a son and ur,and son of Samoan missionaries, has left England to join the Rev. Dr Lawes in the work ofi the London Missionary Society’s training institution in New (guinea. About u fortnight before the news was received of the Rev. James Chalmers’s death Mr Turner received a letter from him, in which h6 wrote : *' CoiUG out with ft grQftfc warmth of love that we can feel, and that will do ns good, and that will raise us to a newer, better life iu Christ.” “I do nut wonder whether the New Guinea convert has faith, but I wonder sometimes whether the white man has faith, and whether he puts his life simply into God’s hands. If I doubt any man’s faith. I certainly do not doubt that of the. New Guinea man.” —The Bishop of New Guinea. The death is announced of the Rev. Joseph Rhodes, who was precentor of the British Wesleyan Conference for fourteen years, and resigned the position two years ag ”Father” Truscott. of Unley, the oldest Methodist class leader in South Australia, and a member of the church for oyer seventy vears, was buried on December G. Aii ecclesiastical law suit of considerable interest to the authorities of the Presbyterian Church of Victoria, is impending, an? Rev. Francis Klhnt, an unattached member of the church, has issued a writ against the Moderator and trustees of (he General Assembly. whereby he seeks to be admitted as a beneficiary of the infirm ministers’ fund. Mr Elliot has already made two formal applications on the subject to the General Assembly—the first at the annual session in 1900, and the second in November last year, when his request was considered in private, and a heated discussion ensued. In both instances the application was refused.