Sir David Brewster said last week, in his great address
to the Edinburgh University, that Scotch Christianity appeals not to the imagination but the judgment. If he had said to the "day of Judgment," he would have been nearer the mark, for that is the -only practical theological idea among the pietistic party, and one which they are always trying, in their small way, to anticipate and mimic for themselves. In Strathbogie, a Free Kirk minister of the name of Di'Gilvray has " overtured the Synod of Moray to over- ture the General Assembly of the Free Kirk to do something to put down Good lVords." His charges against that pious and liberal, if didactic, periodical, are, that a Mr. Thorold, who writes in it, thinks school-boys may take walks and " write home" on a Sunday without Sabbath-breaking, that various theological writings are too liberal, and others-too Popish, and that the editor contributes .a tale " without any distinct allusion to the saving doctrines of the Gospel." An adroit and partially sane Strathbogian of the name of Ingram objected that to try to establish an Index Expurgatorius looked rather Popish, to which a Mr. Murdoch seems to have replied that there was so much Popery on the other side there could be none left for this. A Strathbogian elder of orthodox gravity, but, we suspect, of covert Socratic irony, carried out the idea to its full extent by recommending the Presbytery to " overture " the Assembly of the Free Kirk against every human evil,—a very excellent plan to remove all risk of ever getting forward to the dismal theological Opera. These poor Strathbogians would cer- tainly have approved the Creation better if it had suppressed Man -and Weekdays, and left us only Ministers and Sundays ; or, to say the least, if they could have their Bible as they would like it, it would be quite free from "any distinct allusion" to less dismal
Previous page
