The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 67

Explanatory Statements

Explanatory Statements.

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A clerical member of Presbytery was reported as having said in a public address that "people now went too much to the Old Testament for their religion, the Decalogue was a law given to a rude people in a rude age, and not intended to serve the Church of to-day." Upon being questioned by the Presbytery, he explained that his meaning was that "we had now a higher law, more intense and searching than the Ten Commandments." And this extraordinary explanation was accepted with applause by the Presbytery! Hence the following contribution in which are advanced some things with which neither old fogies nor smatterers will agree. After thirty years of travel, and extensive acquaintance with Presbyteries all over Canada, the United States, and Australasia, truth requires me to say, that the Dunedin Presbytery stands pre-eminent for its lack of four useful properties— dignity, ability, integrity, and fidelity. This is my private opinion, and it cannot be altered until the Presbytery is "born again." Its ignorance of Presbyterianism is enormous. Many a severe lesson I taught that Presbytery while a member of it, and still my late pupil is no credit to me. Ecclesiastical and theological dunces may be sent at once to the hospital for "incurables." It is a well-known fact that there are hundreds of people in this city who have been turned away from Presbyterianism, and, what is infinitely worse, hundreds in Dunedin alone have been fatally poisoned against Christianity in every form, just by the kind of Presbyterianism and Christianity which has been presented to them now for many years. For instance, the 'New Zealand Presbyterian' (the organ of the two Churches, north and south, but edited by members of the Dunedin Presbytery) maintained recently, in view of the general election, that Christians may wisely entrust the law-making of the country to the avowed enemies of Christ! (See the 'N.Z. Presbyterian' of August, 1887). The 'Presbyterian's' disgraceful advice to the electors is summed up thus :—"A Christian can afford to be magnanimous, and welcome an honest man, whether he be a Mohammedan, a Buddhist, or even a Freethinker." (But, for a very different advice, read II. Chron. xix. 2; Ex. xviii. 21; Prov. xxix. 2; 1 Kings ii. 1-4; 1 Chron. xxviii. 9, 10, 20; xxix. 18,19; 1 Kings iii. 7-14). How the Presbyterian salt has lost its original savour! Of course, "an honest man"—"honest" in his belief and to his conscience—will do everything m his power to advance his own principles at the expense of what he believes to be ruinous error (Ps. ii. 2, 3). Acting on the 'Presbyterian's' atrocious advice, put the law-making of our country into the hands of "honest" Mohammedans, Buddhists, and Freethinkers, and what will become of Christianity in less than fifty years? Our churches will be converted into Mohammedan mosques, Buddhist temples, and Freethought lecture halls, according to the preponderating influence of the "honest" lav-makers. There are abler and better men in the smaller towns and country districts than in the city. As to either ability or fidelity to the "glorious Gospel," the Presbyterian pulpit of Dunedin is beneath contempt. The 'N.Z. Presbyterian' (edited by Dunedin men) will, of course, call this "a slander." Portions of the two first parts of this discussion appeared in the 'Evening Herald,' and also in the 'Public Opinion' (both Dunedin papers), and although hundreds of extra copies were struck off the former yet the demand was not supplied. The summaries under "A" and "B" are now added as original matter, and, at the request of many who heard and of others who did not hear the discourses of which the following is only the shortest possible summary), the whole is published in the hope that it may help some to understand " [ unclear: T] Book."

A. C. G.

Dunedin

, N.Z.