THE MELBOURNE PRESBYTERY AND THE REV. MR. STRONG.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XX, Issue 6827, 4 October 1883, Page 5

THE MELBOURNE PRESBYTERY AND THE REV. MR. STRONG.

The Australasian has an iitlo and temperate article on this subject, from which we quote the following paseages:—" The case of the Kev. Charles Strong is from every aspect a matter for deep regret. We have not so many gifted preachers or bo rnsny faithful and laborious pastors in our community as to enable ns to submit with equanimity to the loss of Mr. Strong. And if such a man as Mr. Strong cannot hold his own against the pressure of clericalism, who can stand ? What hope is there now for culture, or for the exercise of independent thought in the Presbyterian Church ? It is plain that the ultra Scotch Tories do not intend thst Mr. Strong shall have any peace among them. It is plain that he feels and recognises this truth. He has a gentle, retiring nature, and is not fitted for the fierce, polemical conflicts in which ho is involved. A man of a coarser and more pugnacious temperament would have clung to his place. Mr. Strong seeks peace, and quietly retires from the contst . . . But it is not of the immediate effect of this controversy that '- we are now thinking. A grave and a larger question arises—What is to become of the Church if it deliberately stifles every liberal movement within its ranks, and every phase of modern culture ? The course which the party under the leadership of Mr. McEaehran is pursuing is a very old, if it has not been a very successful ono. Their policy is the extirpation of heresy. If they can no longer use the gibbet, or the axe, or the stake, they can still employ the weapon.of excommunication. They can drive out from their fold the offending brother who cannot or will not duly pronounce their shibboleth. They make a solitude and call it peace. But it is littls use to cry peace, peace, when there is no peace ; and the solitude whieh McEachran desires is really the absence of the best and moat thoughtful part of his denomination. Two hundred years ago circumstances brought into prominence certain matters of Church discipline and of Biblical interpretation. Muht these matters retain their importance for ever ? If we do not change, we die, and the Church is not exempt from the great law of human life. Even in Scotand itself the tendencies towarde a more liberal system of theology have o£ late years been well marked. Surely it is not . wise to pursue a less moderate course in Melbourne. It is, of course, possible that the Presbyterian Church should shut its ears and avert its eyes from the progress of modern thought; and this course may be for a time successful, and may purge its ranks Irom every man who dusires to study the Bible with better lights and ampler knowledge than the grandfathers of our grandfathers possessed. But the ultimate result is certain. It is first stagnation and then decay, and at last death. The laity must be influenced by the state of knowledge of r the time in which they live. The clergy cannot afford to be in the rear of the laity. We trust that better counsels may prevail, and that the Presbyteryterian Church as a whole will not allow shipwreck of its fortunes to be made by a few wrong-headed and bigoted divines. How can they expect that educated men will enter their Church, if these men must deny their honest convictions? The standards which were sufficient in the seventeenth century are nofc sufficient for the nineteenth. The Church of England has not so stiffened its formularies. It finds room in its ample fold alike for a Colenso and for a Pusey, and it encourage 3 all its members to labour as beat they may, and by such methods as they severally find most suitable in their common cause. There was, indeed, a time when it was otherwise, and when the Church of England followed a policy substantially the same as that of the Melbourne Presbyterians. But it has since found a more excellent way, and surely, the Church which has retained Colenso is more prosperous, and more likely to prosper than the Church which rejected Wesley."