THE PRESBYTERIAN THEOLOGICAL COLLEGE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2198, 16 April 1896, Page 29

THE PRESBYTERIAN THEOLOGICAL COLLEGE.

The inaugural lecture of the session of the Presbyterian Theological College was delivered in the hall of First Church by the Rev. Dr Watt on Friday evening. The chair was taken by Mr E. B. Cargill. ' The hall was well filled, though not crowded. The Chairman, in the course of his introductory remarks, said that it was desired by these ■inaugural lectures to create a more general interest in the work of the Theological College amongst members of the Presbyterian Churoh and of other churches. They attached a very high value and importance to the work that was beiag done by their college. They had already «een good fruit from it in a number of ' ministers settled throughoat this provincial district, whom, he vestured to say, were doing no discredit either to their college or to the community. Snrely too great importance could not be attached to work which was being thus carried on, for unquestionally their church in future, if it waa to take the strong and permanent hold they hoped for, must look for its ministers amongst the sons of the soil, and to those who were bound by the closest ties to the community in which they were living. The lecture to be delivered would, he was surs, secure the utmost attention, not only because of the high respect they had for the lecturer personally, bub because of bis learning and capability as a teaching professor in the college. The chairman also desired to mention that Dr ' Danlop had undertaken to deliver- a series of .lectures on "The Certainty of the Christian Religion," commencing on Friday, the lefc of May, and to be continued weekly for six weeks. The Rev. Mr Gibb, the minister 6f First ' Chutcb, cad also undertaken to deliver a course of lectures of a very valuable character on " The Practical Work of the Ministry," of which due sotice would be given. They desired to enlisthearty co-operation with this work, and trusted that ib would lead to larger things in future, and that great blessings would attend it. MODERN BELIGIOTJS THOUGHT. The Rev. Professor Watt then delivered a learned and. interesting discourse on the ♦• Tendencies of Modern Religious Thought." He first of all combated the assumption of the exclusive Plymalthist, who inclines to the belief that the Christian Church disappeared as if in 6ome vast subterranean cavern immediately after. the Apostolic Age, to emerge to the light in own person and in the persons' of the few who held with him in the nineteenth centary, remarking that the insolence which thus seriously unchrisfcianised the belteveri of all the intervening oentuties was born of ignorance. Next, he dealt with the, position those who, while relying on the hif-toric continuity of the churoh, would arrest its development at about the fourth century, and said that they must fight as strongly against those who disputed the right of the church to belong to the preteut and the future, and said that the church must adapt hortelf to t«r environment if she was to retain her vitality and her usefulness. The leoturer then dealt at considerable length, and with a precision of statement that did not admit of reproduction in a bcief summary, with the question of modern and higher criticism, the result of which, he said, was th&t the critics Very often conferred great benefit on Scripture without at all meaning to do so, by infusing into the Word of God that personal human element which seems to be indispensable to its assimilations by us. Amongst other things, it would the more clearly elucidate the supernatural element in Jewish history. One results was undoubtedly an earnest investigation carried on- into what might be called the human side of the Bible, the human factor in inspiration. Then there was in present-day theological, thought a wall-marked trend in the direction of shifting the seat of authority in religion off from objective bases on which it had been made to rest, such as the church and the letter of Soripture, on to the subjective base of the individual conscience under the enlighteniDg influence of the spirit of God ; while undoubtedly the most remarkable movement of modern religious thought was the movement back again to the Christ of the Gospel. After dealing with theio points as already indicated, the lecturer concluded as follows :— Let me venture to detain you for two or three miuutes more, while I indicate another change which, I conceive, is coming over the minds of thoughtful men' both inside the churoh and outside of it in the direction of reverent agnosticism — a feeling aud a confession of profound, ignorance in the face of the dtupendous mystery of death and of the life beyond the grave. There is, I believe, an ever-deepening conviction that behind this world of beauty and order forming one organic whole, of which., the 'several parts harmoniously dovetail into "one another, there stands a great Mind whioh rnu.de and still governs the world — that the brief present life has not its landing places in itself, but is the introduction to a vaster' existence in which the seed sown in this life shall be harvested for weal or woe, according x to the character of the scad. We' are compelled- by one of the most firmly-implanted instincts of our-nature to a believe that God is, and th&t He is the rawarder of them that diligeutly seek him,; and seeing that the reward is not always given in this life,' we are compelled fco postulate a future state of existence in which the Judge of all the earth •hall do the right which is clearly not done here and now, and shall make the scales, left unequal in this world, even. We know how the facts of the life, and death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth have furnished,*!]} great abundance, fresh oil to make the lamp'Ot what we might call onr natural hope of immortality to bum with greater brilliancy. So great was the increment which Christ contributed to the hope that He might be said to have brought life aud immortality to light by His Gospel. And yet how little we do know of the conditions of Iha*; new phase of existence on whioh we expect to be launched after we leave this world 1 We see one generation coming, another going. A3 a rule there is nothing startling or sensational in the way in which human beiogs enter this stage of existence and quit it *, it is not a simultaneous appearance of vast masses of men in the one case, and of a simultaneous disappearance of equally vast maeies in the other ' case, -awakening -alternate astonishment and alarm. Men steal into the world one by one furtively, so to speak, and with equal furtivesets, in" the'presence of a few friends uurrounding the deathbed, they steal out of it again. But what becomes of those who thus pass away individually, forming countless millions in the aggregate, among whom we all must be reckoned not many years hence ? What is the character of the new exietence to which the dying wake up on the other side, and m what part of the apparently boundless universe are they located ? These are questions we are cpnipelled to ask, and in satisfaction of which we receive not a single syllable of answer. We iweep space witb our- telescopes, and discover that countless millions of worlds, more or less resembling our own, are studding its immensity. Is it in one or more of these worlds, floating on the bosom of boundless space, that the "spirits •£ tbe just made perfect " wo now located— if it

ba right to speak of guoh a thing as locality inconnection with disembodied spirits at all? Or is there enßw&thing our material world, and perhaps interpenetrating it as light interpenetrates glass, a supersensible world of the existence of which we are not aware because we lack facilities for percaiving it ; and is it into this invisible sphere, as into everlasting garners, that the spirits of men are gathered one by one by the sickle of the great reaper, Death P Are our friends who have passed the other side still near us, able to read our thoughts, and to witness <«nd sympathise with all our struggles, though unable to hold any communication with us owing to the great gulf fixed between them and us in the ordination of God P We cannot help asking ourselves what are the controlling interests of our deceased friends in that higher life on which we believe they have entered? what are their great motives to action P in what channels do their activities run ? We know the interests that engross men in the lower life, tha motives which , control and dominate them — preventing gtagI nation, and inspiring all the incessant movement and endless by-play of human society. Men are kept in a state of continual activity in this life by the necessity laid upon them of providing for their bodily wants, of gratifying their various physical cravings. The life of the body is like a fire which needs to be replenished with fresh fuel to prevent it from beiag extinguished, and much of the activity of men in the world is resolvsble in the last resort to the imperative neces?ity laid upon them of providing the appropriate fuel to keep the fire of life burning. With the disappearance of the body, and the consequent cessation of the need of effort to maintain it in a state of health and efficiency, oae principal spur to action which exists in great intensity in the present life will be absent from the life of spirits who have passed out of the body. The Bible pronounces it great benediction on the dead who die in the Lord. But what is to be the eternal destiny of the millions upon millions who have lived and died without having heard so much as that there is a-Saviour of sinners? In endeavouring to elicit some information on these and kindred subjects, we simply strain our eyes by peering into an impenetrable darknsss, in which we succeed in leeißg nothing ; wo shout our questions across the 'void, and there comes back to us only the echo of our questions, followed by a silence as deep "as that of the grave, for it is the very silence of the grave. Men are beginning to realise, as they never realised before, how litble they know. The religious dogmatism which professed to know everything in he*ven and earth and nnder the earth, and which proposed to map out the whole realm of truth celestial and terrestrial, supernal and infernal, and to cut it up into sections with rigidly-defined boundaries, is rapidly disappearing, having fallen out of touch witb the widened thoughts of men. We are learaing to sympathise more with the apo&fcolio confession of ignorance made in the words, "It doth not yet appear what we shall be." When Erasmus heard bis contemporaries clamouring for a meeting of a general council of the Church, at which certain subtle questions of faith then agitating men's minds and dividing them into hostile c»raps might be settled, the great sage-scholar wisely proposed to adjourn the settlement of many of those dark and subtle questions, not to a meeting of a general council, but to the day when we shall see God face to face. It seems to me that this weakening of religious dogmatism which is unquestionably in progresß need not necessarily lead to any waning of true religious faith. It is simply the withdrawal of religious faith from an infinite multiplicity of propositions and objects, which were sot worthy of it and on which it was simply squandered, with a view to its concentration on* the one worthy object — namely, God Himself. It has been often noticed how profound our ignorance of the future is, even in this life, as far as our most intimate interests are concerned; we can foretell movements of the heavenly bodies, eclipses of the sun and moon, thousands of years ahead, and yet we cannot foresee what a day or an hour may bring forth in regard to' that most inipor'aut of all our interests, the life itself. We have no assurance when we leave our homes full of lusty life in the morning that we shall not be brought home corpses at night. Oorr ignorance of the life beyond the grave is just a prolongation of the ignorance in which we are shrouded as to what may happen to us at any moment in the present life. The mystery that faces us is really of divine appointment ; it was meant to be a moral discipline for us, and to force us back upon the eternal God, to compel us to hear His voice, and to believe His promise, walking by His side, aud dinging, ia the dark, to His hand. We have received a call, like the Father of the Faithful, and we must go out, not knowirig whither we are going— following on an unknown way the known Guide ; for amidst the abundance of. our ignorance there is still something that we know. We know Him whom we have believed. We know that all things work together for good to them who love God— to them who are called according to His purpose. We know that the Judge of all the earth shall do right. Clouds and darkness surround Him, but justice and judgment are the habitation of His throne. ' On the motion -of the Rev. Mr Hewitson, a hearty vote of thanks was accorded to Professor Watt for his exceedingly valuable and interesting lecture, and a similar vote was passed to the chairman who had, the speaker remarked, for over half a life time taken a very deep and active interest in the Presbjteriau Church of Otago and Southland. The Rev. Professor Watt acknowledged the vote, and thanked his audience for the kindly way in whioh they had accepted his remarks. The Rev. Professor Donlop • explained that his series of lectures would be so far as he could make them a contribution to the grammar of Faith, or the logic of the Christian creeds. He would be delighted to have during their delivery an opportunity of talking to his Agnostic friends^ and could promise not to indulge in any hysterical abuse, but to do his best to be utterly honest in argument. He. should, he also remarked, b8 glad to be favoured with the views of' Agnostics, but did not want any gladiatorial combats, for such things were useless. They had done with " gladiatorship," but he should be glad to see his Agnostic friends. - The Chaieman said that he had been informed that the session would commence with a very promising class of eight students, seven of whom were natives of Otago. The proceedings were closed by the Rev. J. Bannbkman pronouncing the benediction.

Mrs Susan Moynihan, wife of the manager for Mr Kirkland, Middlemarch, who injured her spine last week by being thrown from the back seat of a trap, died on Tuesday from the effects of the accident. We (Mount Ida Chronicle) hear that the gales in Strath Taieri were so destructive that one farmer got only about nine bags from eight acres of barley which at first promised a fine yield, Another threshed only about eight bags from six acres of vfh«at.