THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. SATURDAY, APRIL 17, 1897.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 10419, 17 April 1897, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. SATURDAY, APRIL 17, 1897.

If the Rev. John Watson had not been the author of "Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush," and several other stories of the Kailyard School of literature, which have taken the popular taste all over the world, " The Mind of the Master" would never have been published, and the author would have been minus the profits it has brought him ; likewise the prosecution for heresy with which he is threatened before his Synod. The book will be widely read, on account of its having been written by a man who has made a name in literature, and if anything were wanted to stimulate a flagging demand, it would be a bitter prosecution for heresy. Indeed, when we hear of a' heresy hunt on account of something published in a book, we are inclined to suspect the author of having slyly promoted it. At all events, no procedure for heresy can do any man so much harm nowadays, as it can do him good. The fierce opposition to "Essays and Reviews" spread the teaching of these papers all over the world far more completely, and in far sliorter time, than could otherwise have happened, while the attempt to boycott the authors by high ecclesiastics was of material assistance io promoting their success in life, and now we 3ee one of them Archbishop of Canterbury. The same may be said of " Ecce Homo." In the circumstances we may make a brief examination of the work, so far as we can do so without entering upon the domain of religious controversy,

"The Mind of the Master" has no chance of becoming an epoch-making work, like the books we have mentioned above. The Rev. Dr. Watson's talents are bettor fitted for dealing with Scottish stories, and bringing out their p&thos and humour, than for opening up new ways of religious thought. Dr, Watson hns no reputation as a scholar. He is not profoundly versed in different readings of texts. He is not by any means an original thinker. To a considerable extent he follows the reasoning of " Ecce Homo," but since the publication of that work its conclusions have become trite. The book is an honest attempt to set forth what Dr. Watson conceives to be the teaching of the Master, as standing free from the vast aggregations of doctrine and dogma which are still regarded by the Churches as part of Christianity. In the very taking up of Ins position Dr. Watson has to assume an attitude which is heretical. Hβ attributes to the words of Christ a power and weight which he refuses to the teaching of any other part of the Bible. He says :- "The religion of Protestants, or let us say Christiana, is not the Bible in all its parts, but first of all that portion which is its soul, by which the teaching of Prophets and Apostles mu3t itself be judged-the very words of Jesus." This is a very dangerous doctrine for several reasons, and amongst others for the reason that our faith in the words of Jesus is based on the testimony of prophets and apostles who are thus belittled. But Dr. Watson goes through with the theory, that the words of Christ were inspired in quite a different degree to the other parts of Scripture, and apparently has not metaphysical penetration enough to see where that will lead him. For instance, lie says :— "St. Paul has touched excellently in various lotters on the work of the Holy Spirit, and his words have fed many, but all the words that ever came from that inspired man are not to be compared with the promise of the Comforter given in the upper room." Is it not somewhat of a contradiction to speak of St. Paul having " touched excellently," just as if he were a mediocre writer, and then to refer to him as "inspired" at all? Would inspiration not necessarily be something more than touching a subject "excellently?" Dr. Watson even goes so far as to say that "it is exasperating to be offered a choice between accepting the Gospel of St. Luke, with its three great parables of Jesus, and the first epistle to the Corinthians, with its ascetic treatment of marriage, as of exactly the same authority for faith and manuers." He ventures to hint that the style of St. Paul is " at times overwrought by feeling," that "some of his illustrations are forced;" that "his doctrine is often Rabbinical rather than Christian;" that his treatment of marriage and asceticism is "somewhat wanting in sweetness." Indeed, throughout, Dh Watson girds at St. Paul, and would fain become openly hostile. He says towards the end, " With all respect to the great Apostle, one may be allowed to express his regret that St. Paul had not said lees about the Church and more about the Kinßdom," and then he shows his wide and liberal spirit by saying, "No natural reading of Church can include Pluto j no natural reading of Kingomd can exclude him." But Dr. Watson is in the same position as the majority of Protestant Christians in regarding St. Paul as the dominant man in tile Church after the Master had departed. St. Paul's position with us is owing to his having founded Gentile ohurolies,. and to his having written more than the others, being readier with his pen. But apparently he wag' regarded by the other Apostles m being tainted with heresy, just as Dr. Watson is ttOw, »nd was "cold-shouldered" by them. One point is taken up by Dr. Watson which we cannot quite understand, He stye that "doctrines of reproba-

tion," (oieaniug, that the wicked are foreordained to perdition,)" have some slight support" in passages of different parts of the Bible, " but they have none in the discourses of Jesus." We do not know how lie would explain the teaching insisted upon in the parable of Dives and Lazarus, in the parable of the tares, of the ten virgins, of the unprofitable servant, and of the judgment in Matthew xxv.

This book is being widely read, the literary fame of the author, coined in quite another field, having been its introduction. It certainly harmonises with the spirit of the time. According to it wo can freely pick and choose amongst creeds and doctrines; if any particular doctrine does not seem to us quite humane and beneficent we can drop it; we are invited, indeed, to take the utmost liberty in sayihg that we disagree with St. Paul. Prosecutions for heresy now are anachronisms, and seeing the results of former essays of the kind, Dr. Watson's synodical brethren may decide to let his singular teaching alone,