Welsh Journals

10 THE WELSH WEEKLY. June 17, 1892. preacher is at a discount; his status is not sufficiently recognised ; his usefulness is underestimated ; and the opportunities and inducements offered for his improve¬ ment are exceedingly scanty. Take, first of all, the local preachers' quarterly meeting. In how many circuits, we wonder, can it be said that this meeting is turned to the most effective account ? In how many cases is the business trans¬ acted at it, anything more than of the most formal cut-and-dried kind ? Half-a-dozen questions of the orthodox type, relating to character, &c, are hurriedly asked and answered, and the meeting'comes to a close. Is it worth while coming together from various parts of a circuit, the places 'of which are sometimes very widely scattered, for such a trivial conversational per¬ formance as this ? We think not, and we urge an improvement. Let such a meeting be made more instructive, stimulating, and helpful; let topics other than, and in addition to the ordinary routine business, be introduced and discussed; let short papers4be read, and views exchanged ; let difficulties, theological and practical, be stated and faced, and suitable counsel be offered; let methods of preaching and work be discussed and criticized; in a word, let all lawful means be devised to " provoke one another to love and to good works." Then, again, something more specific should be done in helping to give local preachers a more thorough equipment for their work. We bestow great care upon the training of our ministers. We send them to a theological institution for three yearp. But what are we doing, in this respect, for our local preachers ? A connexion al training institution for them is, of course, out of the question; in most cases they have their daily bread to earn, and could not well leave their occupations for six or twelve months, even if the means of subsistence for that period were assured to them. But could not theological classes be formed, and lending libraries be established in most of the circuits ? Why not appoint a librarian for each local preachers' meeting, who might have charge of all books that kind friends would be dis¬ posed to lend for the purpose. Let these be loaned to the brethren for specified periods of time. What stores of knowledge and information might thus be accessible to them, to which many of them are at present necessarily strangers! Some improvements of this sort are urgently needed in many circuits. We want to secure for our pulpits an ever-increasing efficiency of lay-preaching. More . life, intelligence, and energy in this important centre would soon vibrate to the circumference of the widest circuit, and would hasten a revival in our societies and congregations.^ THE POWER OF IDEAS. Ideas, not men, govern the world. Or, if men rule, •whether in the Church or in the State, they ""rule only in and by the ideas which are entertained and cherished by those subject to their control. Men have been kings, but ideas are the throne and the sceptre, in and by which they reigned. Men have been priests and popes, but ideas have invested them with all their sacredness in the eyes of the people. An idea clothes a president chosen by the popular voice with a sovereignty more real and more absolute than that of the legitimate monarch or the irresponsible despot. And an idea, deep-seated in the public mind, enthroned in the heart of the nation, however degraded or oppressed that nation may be, though it be Turkey or Muscovy itself, still a political or religious idea which they reverence as having come down to them from a patriarch or a prophet, even there sets bound to the power of the autocrat, saying to the Czar or the Sultan, " Thus far shalt thou come, and no farther, and here shalt thy proud waters b9 stayed." William S. Tyler. Science tells us that the dew gathers most generously in that hour of night which just precedes the dawn. Even so the Father's most abounding grace is communicated in that darkest, chilliest hour that ends in the daybreak. Death may bring deep gloom for the while even over the heart of the bravest Christian. But God's work of perfecting is completed through death. The pride of John Chinaman is sometimes taken down. I remember a man coming in, hurriedly looking round, and saying, " You foreigners say that there is such a thing as electricity, but it is very evident there is no such thing, for if there was we in China would have had it ages ago." The assistant asked him if he would kindly take hold of those two brass handles just for one moment and he would explain it to him, and he did explainjit to him, and that man left a sadder, and a wiser man.—Eev. J. S. Whiteriaht LECTURES ON CHRISTIANITY. BY THE LATE REY. PRINCIPAL D. CHARLES DAYIES, M.A. (Translated for the Welsh Weekly.) LECTURE IY.—THE RELATION OP CHRISTIANITY TO THE* WILL. (Continued.) Christianity is true, not only to the fact experienced by every man that he is a person, but to the additional fact of freedom, which is based upon the relation of his will to his personality. It would be more appropriate to say that the will belongs to human nature, and that it is a common faculty to all who possess that nature. But in man all the features of his nature are bound within the limits of a person who is distinct from every other person, who stands out separate and alone. The great truth that is based upon the union of the will and the person is the responsi¬ bility of man. This union is different in one respect from the union of will and personality in God. If it is said that there is a sense in which the will is the man, there is a higher sense in which God's will is Himself, that is, that His will operates necessarily in accordance with the moral prin¬ ciples of His essence. Although there are difficulties which cannot be solved attaching to the mode in which God operates upon the wills of his creatures without violating them thereby, these difficulties have nothing to do with the free¬ dom of His own will. It is the freedom of His will that is seen in the ordination of the laws of nature, in his dominion over and among men, in all the means used by Him for the salvation of the world. Inasmuch as God is the only Being who is essentially holy, His will is the only will which is infinitely above the possibility of sub¬ jection to any bondage, which remains essentially free from everlasting to everlasting, In God the essential freedom of His will is the foundation of his sovereignty; while in man the freedom of his will as a rational creature is, as we have noticed, the basis of his accountability. So, too, the sovereignty of God cannot lead to any tyranny, because it is founded upon His essential holiness and righteous¬ ness ; and the freedom of His will can never in¬ duce him to commit injustice towards the least and feeblest of His creatures, because He always wills in accordance with the holiness of His essence. Moreover, while the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man are in contrast with each other, both are based upon freedom of will and upon the relation of will to personality, and yet they divide from each other into the infinite distance which exists between God Himself and men. Christianity is true to the freedom of the will of man as a rational creature in its definite declaration of man's obligation to God, and of his accountability to Him for his thoughts no less than for his deeds. The great doctrine which contains within it the obligation and the responsi¬ bility of man is the doctrine of the day of judg¬ ment. What wins the ear of human nature in connection with that day is, not any woes or terrors which may be described or aroused by masters of assemblies in the minds of their audiences, but the declaration of man's responsibility; a doctrine which is true to human nature, and to the truth of which that nature cannot but respond. The doctrine of the Day of Judgment, as it is in the Scriptures (1 Cor. iv. 5), involves the responsibility of man to God, not for his words and deeds alone, but also for his most secret purposes—for the lawlessness of his lusts and desires, and for his conscientiousness and sincerity in the formation of his opinions. When it is said that a man is not responsible for his opinion, as if he formed his judgments meehani- cally, without any intervention of will whatever, a most corrupt licence is introduced into one of the highest acts of mind. But when we understand that man is responsible to God for his love of truth, for his conscientiousness, for his desire to believe that which is trnr>, and to know what is true and worthy of belief, then to form correct judgments in political and religious matters comes to be ranked among those moral duties which enter into the obligation of a responsible creature. It is the Omniscient alone who is competent to judge with certainty how true the man's purposes were, how diligent were his investigations in fram¬ ing his judgment, and how far the incorrectness of his opinions is to be attributed to his fallibility as a creature, and how far to the depravity of his heart as a sinner. The consequence is that as a man is bound in responsibility to God, so is he freed from accountability to men for the judgment he frames and declares (Rom. xiv. 10, 12, 13). In this freedom from accountability to men for religious opinions, and consequently from danger of suffering civil punishment, imprisonment or death bn account of them, civil and religious liberty consists. But this is a liberty which has been secured by the revelation of the obligation of man as a creature responsible to God for tenden¬ cies, purposes, and the most secret intents of the heart. Freedom from all outward compulsion and the bonds of duty to a just and omniscient God—these are the great foundations of all liberty that is not licence, that is, of all liberty which man can honourably possess and use. Christianity is true to the will of man as he is a sinner, and therefore in bondage to the servile obedience of the passions and lusts of his nature. While it is definitely said that "it is God who works in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure," the whole tenor of Scripture shows that He can do this in perfect accordance with the freedom and the responsibility of man as a rational being ; in other words, that he can turn the key in the lock without breaking the lock ; so that man under the influence of the will of God willa as freely as if he did so wholly of himself. His knowledge, His wisdom, and His power enabled God to operate upon the will of man in perfect accordance with all its functions—yea, more, through all its functions. While the will of man is in bondage to lusts and passions, it is in an unnatural state, and in need of a super¬ natural power to break its bonds. (To be continued.) •--------------+---------.------ NOTES FROM THE WELSH COLLEGES. (By Our Special Correspondents.) BALA-BANGOR COLLEGE. Db. Heebeb Evans was nominated at a meeting of the Bala-Bangor College Committee, on the 8th inst., to the Principalship. This fact has given great satisfaction at Bangor. In all probability it will be resolved at the general meeting in July next to close the college at Bala, and to remove the students at present studying there to Bangor. The appointment, which now goes without saying, of Dr. Evans to the Principalship, gives promise of a bright future to the Bangor Theological College. PONTYPOOL COLLEGE. We head that Mr. D. Collier, one of our students, has been invited to the pastorate of Kamoth Baptist Church, Hirwann. Mr. Collier commenced to preach at Jerusalem, Llwynpia, and passed the entrance examination of the College at the head of the list. Since he was admitted, three years ago, he has spent two years at the University College, Cardiff. He hag applied himself diligently to his studies during his time at both places, and promises to become an excellent preacher. The church at Hirwann is a good one in every respect, and although it has sustained a heavy loss in the removal of their late pastor, it will be covered to a great extent by the advent of Mr. Collier.