Within and round this petty globe be known But which a mental gourd hath now in Britain grown. 1 Even Jesus Himself is reputed by Matthew to have said, "I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel." And, after doing divers miracles, The multitude wondered, when they saw the dumb to speak, the maimed to be whole, the lame to walk, and the blind to see; and they glorified the God of Israel."--Chap xv. But the God we now worship is the God of the Universe, not merely the God of Israel. Luke also makes Jesus say, "Verily, I say unto you, no prophet is accepted in his own country. But I tell you of a truth, Many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the land,' all such expressions clearly showing the sectarian and figurative character of the writings for no person can now believe that the immutable order of creation could be suspended for three years and a half. And regarding the miracles of true Christianity, so beautifully but figuratively expressed by the Apostles, go into the dens of vice and disease which fester in the back slums of large and crowded cities, or into the midst of savage barbarism, what is more true than that the beneficent spirit of Christianity can, and does, indeed, make "the dumb to speak, the mained to be whole, the lame to walk, and the blind to see;" and also, when the enlightened, benevolent soul of true Christianity has driven out prostitution and drunkenness, it has in very truth "cast out devils." Wherever there is want and sickness, ignorance and crime, drunkenness and prostitution, and misery, there is plenty of opportunity of “healing the sick," "cleansing the leper," "raising the dead," and "casting out devils." Such results as these are far greater and truer than the merely literal reading of the miracles, as recorded in Scripture, and not at all their true signification, unless to the ignorant and to the spiritually blinded bigot. But some may very naturally ask, "What does this fellow give us in place of our orthodox belief in miracles, creeds, and confessions of faith?" The answer is simply, Education, the weapon of Truth, good habits and the true knowledge of the laws of God. For there is an instinctive desire implanted in the mind, or “inmost parts" of humanity, to worship the Almighty Ordainer, in spite of every human creed; and the great matter is to keep that natural instinct of the soul from being turned aside from its true object, by ignorance and credulity, and, furnished with the spiritual wings of enlightened truth, and the true spirit of Christianity, to soar upwards and onwards to the All-wise God, in kindred spirit and in truth. All else is not worship, but "an abomination unto me, saith the Lord." Eschew hypocrisy and false religion, study the laws of God, be truthful, temperate, industrious, virtuous, but indeed if you study God's laws, you will do all these and be happy. Epicurus reasoned acutely and justly, to show that "a regard to our present happiness should induce us to the practice of temperance, justice, and humanity.” But the bulk of mankind cannot follow long trains of reasoning. The loud voice of the passions drowns the calm and still voice of reasoning; he who pays a sacred regard to the dictates of his conscience, cannot fail of a present reward, proportioned to the exertion required in doing his duty. And David Hume says, "Priests may justly be regarded as an invention of timorous and abject superstition, which dares not offer up its own prayers and sacrifices, but is glad to pay any set of men who pretend to know the will and to be the favoured friends and servants of Divinity." But Isaiah tells far truer, "Behold, God is my salvation, I will trust, and not be afraid, for the Lord Jehovah is my strength and my song, He also is become my salvation. The Lord is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord is our king, He will save us.' "I am the Lord, and there is none else, I, even I, am the Lord, and besides me there is no Saviour; XLVII. With hope like this, oh, statesmen at the helm, XLVIII. Call none heretical for innate faith, Remember Rome! the thousands she hath burned. Let Truth, God's pilot, Science guide thy prow, XLIX. The human soul, O Truth, is destined yet To cleave on wings of science to the "House of God," 1 a just God, and a Saviour there is none beside Me. Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth, for I am God, and there is none else. Thou shalt know that I the Lord am thy Saviour, and thy Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob." Can any words be truer than these of the old prophet? If the Almighty Ordainer could only be known by the Spirit of Truth, and the true magnificent simplicity of His greatness known by His reason-gifted son Humanity, with the exception of the knowledge of His ordained and immutable laws,-"The last and highest consecration of all true religion must be an altar to the unsearchable 'unknown' and unknowable God." There was no formal House of God, or built place for worship, until Solomon built his temple, and even it was built as an altar or temple to the glory of God, rather than a place of worship; because Solomon very sensibly doubted if "God would indeed dwell on the earth," as 'the heaven of heavens could not contain Him, much less the house he builded." He was perfectly correct in this, although afterwards, when old, he foolishly went and worshipped the idols of his different wives.-See 1 Kings xi. His father David also "made him houses in the city of David, and prepared a place for the ark of God, and pitched for it a tent. So the priests and the Levites sanctified themselves to bring up the ark of the Lord God of Israel."-1 Chron. xv. But the Roman G To mystify no more where bigots trod, When the spiritual sun of mind shall shine abroad, At last relieved by "Truth," Christ's promised goal, L. And thou, my native city, sighs Amen; Catholic and Protestant Christian Churches seem to have forgotten the grandeur of the attributes of the living God, by rushing up thousands of houses or churches, never troubling themselves to ask whether or not "God would indeed dwell on the earth," so long as they got them built, and preached up massacres and murder, formality or hypocrisy, as suited their own arrogant or merely sectarian views. These petty churches were ostentatiously in imitation of that magnificent Hebrew temple or altar, in honour of God, the meanest village having two or more of these almost rival houses, "builded,”-all well enough, if performance follows profession of the true doctrine of Christianity. But the real House of God is the Universe, for "the heaven of heavens even cannot contain Him," much less ten thousand million of these little rival sectarian meeting-houses. And, until the great Almighty pervading Spirit of God and Truth is appreciated truly, and worshipped in kindred spirit and in truth," as directed by His Son Jesus Christ, these houses, instead of being places of worship, are like the high places of the idolater, places of mockery, idol-worship, places set apart to Baal; not the living Spirit of Jehovah, who cannot be deceived by "rites, prayers, fasts, and solemn days;" these, without His Spirit, are "a trouble unto Him, and which His soul hateth." At the bidding of God, Hezekiah "removed the high places, and brake the images, and cut down the groves, and brake in pieces the brazen serpent that Moses had made, and said to Judah and Jerusalem, Ye shall worship before this altar in Jerusalem."2 Kings xviii. But in all this there is no desire to undervalue churches, meeting-houses, or schools. Very far from it indeed! Let the Spirit of God and Truth be there, thoroughly unfettered from Confessions of Faith, and there is not, nor can be, a nobler aim than the teaching of truth, and the progressive welfare of our race. If such were the case, these churches would do more vital good, be better attended than they ever can be, fettered by narrow Confessions of Faith and so-called "Standards of Religion." For, as Luke says, "God is not a God of the dead, but of the living;" and Jeremiah says, "And it shall come to pass, when ye be multiplied and increased in the land, in those days, saith the Lord, they shall say no more the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord, neither shall it come into mind, neither shall that be done any more," for "I will give you pastors according to Mine heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding." After such a plain and unmistakeable prophetic truth as this, why adhere so closely, like a limpet to the rock, to the old "Covenants of the Ark of the Lord" or "waxen old garments" of Confessions of Faith? No wonder that even Paul said to the Romans, "Is God a God of the Jews only or, as Truth now asks, a Lord God of Israel only! (Paul had a glimmering belief that his own creed would be questioned by futurity, as he himself not only questioned, but set aside the Mosaic Creed, as having waxed oll, and to be done away with," when he wrote, "O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of Science, falsely so called.") THE CITY OF ST ANDREWS. " And thou-my native City sighs Amen! Proclaim that what hath been, shall be again; The berths filled up with silted sand and mould, Wise trade, offended, veers and sails away, To see her vessels shelved, and hear her seamen swear. themselves of the advantages which their noble bay and the German Ocean afford, and no longer despise their best gift of Nature. A few retired elderly gentlemen amusing themselves at golf, or the education of a too limited number of youths within her precincts, do not comprise all that St. Andrews is capable of. See busy, thriving, and enterprising Dundee bridging the Tay, virtually stealing the coalfields of Fife as an important branch of its export traffic; and unless some vitality be shown by the blind rulers, or rather jailers, of St. Andrews, they will also steal her ancient university, for the nation cannot be expected to advance public money for ever for the public education of youth, on a place, commercially speaking, standing still and despising the very means of progress which Nature has so liberally bestowed upon it. Education and amusement are essentially necessary as parts of the life of man; but the chief feature of the age is commercial progress, and every community, or even nation, which fails to shift its sails to catch the prevailing wind of the world's destiny, has but one doom written upon its forehead; the fiat,-set on the human race, typified in Adam-embraces a far wider and truer range than amusement or mere book-learning, and which industry and commerce, instead of impeding, would immeasurably assist. In 1846 a royal commission was appointed by Government to inspect and report upon all the harbours of Scotland, and which report most pointedly states, that St. Andrews, lying at the bottom of a deep bay, is exactly in the position in which a good harbour would be of much service to vessels embayed in an easterly gale, between the projecting headland of Fifeness (on the Forth) and the sandbanks of Tay. But even the extension of its pier to low water, and the removal of the rocks called the 'Burn Stools,' which could be done at a small expense, would confer a great local benefit. The arrivals in 1846 were 155 vessels, of 6025 tons, and the revenue arising from dues levied (only) by the authority of the magistrates, £180. The minutes of the Town Council, which give the history of the harbour for about three centuries, show that it has always attracted much attention, but it does not appear that any well considered plan of improvement, by a competent person, had been ever laid down and steadily acted upon." The same report states, "It is necessary to remark, that in most of the smaller harbours in Scotland, and in some of the larger ports, a portion of the dues levied on shipping and shipments is still applied to municipal purposes, as lighting and paving the streets, instead of being devoted to their legitimate purpose of harbour repairs and improvements. The time would seem to be come, when these dues, levied in most cases under ancient charters, should be applied to their legitimate use, and that the shipping interest should at least have the benefit of the dues they pay laid out in repairing and deepening the harbour, and in providing a safe place of shelter for a time of need." How applicable all this is to St. Andrews harbour, every one who knows the place will at once perceive. In a small local way, shipping has been systematically defrauded of about £170 annually, after paying all expenses, for the last twenty years, and the money frittered away, as the report of the royal commission states, on paving the streets, and other municipal purposes. |