Notes

New Zealand Tablet, 3 February 1910, Page 182

Notes

‘Seeing the Baby’ When the mere man is called in to admire his friend’s baby he must not think that it will be permitted to him to 1 damn with faint praise ’ or to be moderate and discriminating in his-appreciation. He must be whole-hearted and thorough-going, else will he reap for himself shame and confusion of face. As for instance: ‘ He’s not what you call strictly handsome,’ said the major, beaming through his eye-glasses on an utterly hideous baby as he lay howling in his mother’s arms; ‘but it’s the kind of face that grows on you,’ * It’s not the kind of face that ever grew on you,’ was the indignant and unexpected reply of the maternal being; ‘you’d be better looking if it had!’ Just Encouraging Trade: An Election Incident The Edinburgh Catholic Herald records that a wellknown M.P., who always enjoyed a safe seat, was much distressed when he learnt that he was to be opposed at the next election. Hearing that the opposition was being engineered by a wealthy local draper, he strongly remonstrated with him. ‘ What is the use of fighting me, Mr. W. ?’ he asked. ‘ltis a waste of time and money, for I had a majority of three thousand at the last election. Moreover, I have served the constituency well for many years, and I think I deserve a walk over this time.’ ‘Certainly you do, sir, and only stern necessity compels me to force a contest upon you,’ answered the draper. ‘ Unfortunately, my bungling manager, making sure there would be an election, has bought a huge stock of colored handkerchiefs and ribbons as party favors, and I sha’n’t have an earthly chance of getting rid of them unless I rig up a fight of some sort.’ Why They Don’t Go to Church The American Magazine prints the following from the editor of the Wall Street Journal, written in reference to certain articles by Mr. Roy Stannard Baker on the ‘ Spiritual Unrest.’ Some of the statements are too general and sweeping— is an exaggeration, for example, to suggest that all or anything like all, of the Protestant Churches believe that ‘ Christ is not God but the utterance is an admirable nutshell summary of present tendencies, and of the way in which, under the disintegrating influence of private judgment, Christian dogma is being completely whittled away. People,’ says this writer, do not go to church the Protestant churchesbecause the churches have ceased to teach them religious truth with authority, and because Christendom, so-called, outside the Roman Catholic Church, has ceased to believe in the fundamental truths of religion.’ * ‘ The Protestant churches started in business, so to speak, on the basis of “ faith, not works,” and now have drifted to the absolute opposite of that position—“works, not faith.” Dogma is a thing abhorred; creeds are “outworn”; all truth is relative; man is not fallen; Christ is not God; atonement is a fiction, and an unnecessary fiction at that; everything is explained away on natural grounds; there is no hell to —Why should people go to church ? * Protestant Christendom,’ he continues, ‘has already lost faith in the Incarnation; a large part of it no longer believes in original sin, and a great many who call themselves Christian do not believe in a personal God. What is religion if it be not that group of truths which expresses man’s relations with the duty to his Creator? What are these truths but dogmas ? How can there he an undogmatic religion? There is no Christianity properly so-called in the world to-day; that is, Christianity as a religion, outside of the Roman Catholic Church. Protestantism in all its forms is an empty shell now, and even the shell is rapidly disintegrating. The generation now growing up will demonstrate that to you and me if we live our allotted space according to the psalmist. And not even “ refined vaudeville ” will then suffice to keep the churches open.’

The Clericalism of Some Anti-Clericals Apropos of discussions on ‘ The Church in Politics ’— to which reference is made elsewhere in this issue—a remarkable letter has recently been published by that staunch Wesleyan/ Sir Robert Perks, in which he explains that neither he nor the Wesleyan body at large has any sympathy with the sort of clericalism which is represented by Dr. Clifford and his friends. Methodists, he says, have never taken kindly to the priest in politics,’ and still less to ‘ politics in the pulpit.’ But he distinguishes between the Wesleyan Methodists and the Baptist and Congregational bodies, and declares that it is the latter which follow with such blind - devotion Dr. Clifford’s clericalism. ‘ Indeed, one sometimes wonders at the flexibility of their principles when the fortunes of their political party are at stake. In Ireland, in France, even in the English village, they denounce the unwarrantable interference of priests in the secular and political affairs of the people and yet their ministers claim to shape the policy, and issue to their churches their marching -orders, in the coming electoral struggle. Many of their pulpits are to be converted temporarily into electioneering platforms; “ manifesto* ” are being showered upon their people, as though they were revelations from heaven and the fiery cross is to be carried throughout the land by preachers who have convinced themselves that they are called by God to smite the “hereditary foes of Nonconformity ” hip and thigh.’ Sir Robert then refers to the record of the present Government, and concludes thus: ‘Dr. Dale’s successor at Birmingham, the Rev. Mr. Jowett, who presided last Friday, tried to cheer the disconsolate Dissenters by telling them that “ at the psychological moment they would claim Disestablishment for England.” How is it that these “ psychological moments" for Nonconformity arc always to come the day after tomorrow