The Open Church from Salina, Kansas • 2

2 THE OPEN CHURCH reference to its surroundings, or regard to its spiritual meaning. As to the local value of the various texts advanced by him, he paid no attention whatever; and his contempt for all Higher Critics was sublime! Learning had nothing to do with the Bible it was God's inspired word from the first word to the last, and our only duty was to accept it literally, and be thankful. Now, inasmuch as this good brother was entrusted with the true literal interpretation of each and every text from Gen-eses I to Revelation XXII, I thought it best to retire. I was clearly not in it, and my defeat was simply crushing. It seems scarcely fair that one man should know so much, and another so little! At the same time we must gracefully recognize the mysterious providence that so orders it.

It is very clear that increased speed in the physical world carries with it no like momentum into the moral and intellectual world. I am indebted to Prof. Swing for this thought, who says that the moral world is always dragged by oxen. It has no railway speed. The clergymen who went to the last General Assembly traveled by the rapid car.

They may have received messages by electricity, but the car and electricity did not impart any swiftness to their intellects. Even Congress at Washington assembled by steam, but when the science of the nineteenth century had gotten them together it could do no more for them. When a congressman rides in a car a mile a minute he will, at the end of his journey, have no more intellect than he had when he started. I have found the truth of this in Great Britain. I travel from York to Edinburgh a mile a minute, and find Edinburgh surpassing all my expectations physically.

What a complete tour of Europe it necessary to see elsewhere, here, in Edinburgh, you find congregated in one city. I am convinced it is the most picturesque, fascinating and delightful city in the world. It is well worth traveling ten thousand miles to see, and my note book is full. Yet on Saturday night I saw more drunkenness and rowdyism in three hours than I have ever before seen or expect to see again. It was simply shocking! Not only the men, but the women, were in a quarrelsome mood through the accursed drink, and I saw several female encounters.

Shortly before midnight the streets were deserted and I got back to the Waverly Hotel without any difficulty. So much for the moral advance, and yet it is only fair to add that everything was hermetically sealed the next day. Sabbath observance in-Edinburgh means no papers, every store closed all day (including the saloons, cigar shops, etc.) and the most marked attendance on divine service. In the morning I attended St. George's church, and in the evening St.

Gile's Cathedral both of the established church. The sermons were commonplace, tame and tedious. There was neither intellectual nor spiritual force. No living topic either past, present or to come, was touched upon. The service in the morning was sleepy in all respects, and the evening service was only saved from it by the music, which was really good.

So much for the intellectual and spiritual advance, and yet it is only fair to add that I was told that I ought to have gone elsewhere. For several months past Miss Ida B. Wells, M. of Memphis, a young colored woman of good education and fine ad- "My I should think she'd blow up." "Oh, that wouldn't matter, all the decks are fitted in vertical grooves and supplied with air chambers, so that in the event of an explosion they would rise completely out of the hull and float in the air like the air-ships you read about. The motion is said to be delightful far superior to that of a balloon." They searched his face, but it was quite serious.

"Really?" they chorussed. "Really. And another interesting thing is that we burn so much coal that all the cargo we can carry is fodder for the donkeys." I could add many an interesting item to the foregoing concerning the Campania, but forbear for the present. These vacation notes will not end with the vacation at least such is my mind, and I hope the readers of the Open Church are, like Barkis, "willin." You soon get acquainted on board ship with your fellow passengers. Necessity compels you to, and there is so much novelty in all the surroundings that it is the easiest thing imaginable to talk about this, that and the other, to Tom, Dick and Harry, none of whom you ever met before.

I was in good company at the table. On my immediate left sat a Methodist preacher from Detroit, and directly opposite another M. E. brother from Maryland. Nearly all denominations were represented, including a contingent of the Salvation Army, under the leadership of Major Ballantyne Booth, (son of the General) who were on their way to take part in the great Jubilee Celebration at the Crystal Palace.

The Army held services quite frequently during the voyage, but I cannot say I was edified in fact I doubt much whether they contributed any thing beyond a little diversion to many, and regrets to others that the gospel should be so maltreated. I can thus criticise, because it is well known that both by voice and pen I have supported and defended the army. But they seemed unable to take in the situation and acted just as if they were before a "slum" audience. Their singing was wretchedly poor, and in bad taste, and their favorite chorus ran as follows: "Come this way, come this way, 'While the bells are ringing, "And the Angels singing, "And the big base drum goes "Boom, boom, boom And it is a sad fact that the Army is more and more separating itself from all other bodies, and it has thus become des-tinctly a sect. More than likely they have been forced into this attitude because of the unchristian treatment of the organized church sad commentary on the "fellowship of the saints." There was also in our company an evangelist of the First Day Adventists a new body so far as my limited knowledge of divided Christendom went.

Without any intention on my part I became involved in an argument with this brother, and for pure, unalloyed, refreshing, dogmatism, he was superior to any controversialist I have ever met. He settled all things in the heavens above and on the earth beneath, as well as the wonders that are in the sea, by a biblical text quoted without any.