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"well arranged - and comfortable, consisting of four apartments-two bed-rooms and two living rooms with kitchen and offices. It should be mentioned that the frontage of the new building will bə set off with handsome iron | railings, while at the top of the stone staircase will be massive gates surmounted by an arch and lamp-posts. Mr. B. Brotherton Harker was the architect.
The management of the reading-room and library devolves upon a committee of which Mr. J. J. Bryan is chairman and Mr. F. Howell secretary and treasurer. Assisted by their committee, these gentlemen are now pasbing forward the furnishing and general completion of the new building, and the opening ceremony will take place, it is expected, at an early date.
Death of PRINCE KOMATSU OF JAPAN.
No member of the Imperial family of Japan, probably, was more widely known to the world beyond the Land of the Rising Sun than Prince Komatsu, whose death, we regret to announce, occurred at Tokyo on the 18th inst. from apoplexy. His Imperial Highness was born in 1846, and was therefore only 57 years of age at the time of his death. In his youth the custom of his country indi ated the priest hood as the only legitimate career for young scions of the Imperial family, and it appeared certain that his life would be spent as a Budd- hist abbot. But the Prince's youth synchronised with the commencement of that great change in the national life of Japan which, as it has gradually developed, has become the wonder and admiration of the world. Naturally the Prince felt a keen interest in the struggle for the.restoration of administrative power to the throne and the abolition of the Shogunate, and he left the priesthood to play his part in the great drama. Convinced, as he had become, that Japan's only hope lay in frankly accepting foreign intercourse, he also onceived that the best preparation for the change would be a visit to Europe. Several causes operated to restrain the young Prince from starting at once among them being a strong objection on the part of the Court. Meanwhile he was appointed at the age of 22 to the chief command of the forces sent by the Government against the Tokugawa vassals in the north who had refused to accept the new order of things peace- fully.
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THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
[February 28, 1908.
forces. Finally, he became chief of the general | the human heart had to do in order that it staff, but recommended the late Lieut.-General | might fad its way back into fellowship with Viscount Kawikami as his successor.
It is well within the memory of most of our readers that Prinos Komitsu was selected to represent Japan at King Edward's Coronation, and His Imperial Highness availed himself of | the opportunity to visit most of the capitals of Europe. It was aptly observed by a writer in the Times, from whose biographical sketch we are indebted for the above particulars, that the Prince was not only respected but beloved in Japan, for his whole career had been one of | patriotic us fulness and practical benevolenc.
DR. PENTECOST AT THE CITY HALL.
ODD VOLUMES SOCIETY LECTURE,
the
Under the auspices of the Odd Volumes Society, er. Geo ge F. Pentecost, D.D. lectured in S. Androw's (City) Ha'l on 25th inst. on The Reasonableness of Chris tianity." There was a large audience, the hall being completely filed.
that
Mr. H. E. PLL CK, K.C, who presided said, in his introductory remarks, Dr. Pentecost intended to deal with his subject from the scientific and historic as well as from the purely religious standpoint; he was sure his observations would be listened to with every attention. (Applause.)
Dr. PENTECOST said it was a cardinal articlo of his own faith that if Christianity was not reasonable it was not divine, because God must be divinely reasonable. In considering the subject of the reasonableness of Christianity, they mast eliminate all consideration Christianity as it had been involved in politics or with the State, all consideration of eccle-
of men and
of
siasticism, and, lastly, they must eliminate from the divine revelation certain ethical associations. When they came down to the naked subject, they were not dealing with a theory or a speculation, but a great confronting, historical fact, deficite and distinct; not sporadic in its manifestations but contiuuous. Away back into the pre-patriarchal ages we found the spirit, genius and power of Chris- tianity articulating themselves with a historical force. The man who attempted by any intellectual process to say he had determined to put himself outside of the obligation which rested upon him in respect of all the great factors in human life and history, who refused The Court's sanction being finally obtained to consider Christinuity, raled himself out of for the Prit ce's visit to Europe, His Imperial the class
women who might Highness left Yokohama on a P. & O. stoamer be reasonably called the class of culture or in the antumn of 1871. He was the first intelligence. He was not there to affirm the Japanese Prince of the blood received at the truth of Christiani y; only to show that there English Court, and every facility was afforded was nothing in Christianity that did descredit for making the Prince's stay in England plea to the highest form of huma reason. sant and instructive The death of his father Christianity was based on three great collaterals, necessitated the Prince's return to Japan at First of all was the Bible. They could not the close of the following year. During his deny its existence nor could they deny that absence the army had been reorganised, and all it contained the presentation of what pur officers were required to go through a regular ported to be the self-revelation of God course of military training. Though the to man, in which the idea that God had first Prince had commanded an army corps in the spoken to man gradually led up to culmination field, and had filled the post of Minister of War, of that idea in the personality of Jesus Christ, His Imperial Highness nevertheless applied the second collateral on which Caristianity was at once to be drafted into the lowest rank of based. The historical existence of Jesus Christ commissioned officers, his argument being that WA8 no longer denied by the critics of no results could be better than those achiered Christianity. But it was the belief in the by the European system of obliging even resurrection of Jesus Christ that had per- Princes and nobles to qualify for high positions petuated to us His personality. You could not by service in the lowest. The Government, dissociate Jesus Christ from the Bible. He appreciating the spirit, gave the Prince a com- rose out of its pages from Genesis to Revelation. mission as sub-lieutenant, But within a few It was held together by His personality. In the months State exigencies required that the next place, we had the third collateral on which Prince should again assume the nominal leader. Christianity was grounded just as clearly ship of a forco sent to quell an insurrection articulated, and that was the Church of Christ, connected with the abolition of feudalism, and in the society of men and women who embodied the sequel of that affair he was promoted Christianity. Christianity in itself seemed to be to be a major-general. The Satsuma rebel- an exotic amongst all people and yet indigenons lion of 1877 called him oncs more to to every human heart. Dynasties might fall, the field as a commander of the Guards but Christianity lived. It was embodied in the Division, and throughout the arduons and individual, in all literature, in art, and more or sanguinary campaign in Kinshin he showed less in all the sciences, in all our social and much military ability. Nine years later he institutional life. What was it to be a visited America and Europe, and, in 1887, he Christian? It was to be a dsciple of Jesus represented the Mikado at Queen Victoria's Christ, a learner, a follower; but the Christian Jubilee The Prince's next important office did more: he accepted Him and all His teachings, was, the command of the Guards Division in His example and His sovereign lordship over the China Japan War of 1894-95, and during | his ethical and spiritual life. Jesus was pre- the final operations of the war he had the eminently a religious teacher. Now, what was ́e command-in-chief of the whole expeditionary ❘ religions truth? It was that truth with which
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God, with its Creator. But Christianity taught that Christ was not only a religious but an infallible teacher. The teachings of Jesus Christ were the statements of the truth out of His own consciousness of 'trath. The enormous egotism of Jesus (hrist—if he might use the term-was found in no other teacher that ever lived. He spoke not as the result of thongåtful meditation, philosophic speculation, or scientific deduction. but right out of the divine consciousness,
mathematics.
My docʻrine is not my doctrine, but the doctrine of Him that sent Me," said Jesus Christ. Man said that tó believe in the infalli- bility of Jesus Christ was an unreasonable proposition. But infallibil.ty was not a taga- ther unreasonable. We had attained to it in The question lay between the infallibility of man and the infallibility of Christ. The next poiut was that Christ's teachings involved a rev lation. Again, man said that a revelation was unreasonable. Was revelation per re unreasonable ? Was it reasou- able that the Power who created as should sen t us into this world with religious feelings, with that longing after God which all must admit; that God should make provision for every part, of man except the highest part, that part which every man recoguised to be the highest part of him. The denial of the reasonableness of a revelation was a most unreason.ble denial. It was not a reasonable thing to suppose that God would leave us without light upon the one abject which in the crisis of our being becomes the all-important subject. Looking at it fr. m a practical point of view, there should be a revelation. And so it was left for Jesus Christ to pome with a revelation; whether true or false, He pretended and assumed to satisfy 18. Who is God? Joans Christ gave a the answer. Another point which revelation involv.d was an admission of the supernatural. What and endowed the world, is still the transcen- did that imply? It meant that God, who mada
dent master. Christianity bad broken down the naturally haughty intellect of man, bad found its way not only into the hearts of human thought, and to-day it commended itself nen but had taken possession of the leaders of
to the reason of man, because it had not con. tradicted reason bat had simply transcended reason. (Applause.)
The CHAI MAN moved a vote of thanks to
Dr. Pentecost for his very able and convincing lecture. (Applause.) He was sure the audience shared with him in regretting that that would probably be the last lecture they would have
from Dr. Pentecost for some time here, as he was leaving for Canton. l'e had set them all a very good eximple of strenuousness. He had held a great many meetings in the Colony during his short presence and they would all agree that he had at all times and in all places
taught them the bighest as it had been revealed to him. (Applause.)
The meeting then dispersed.
THE CITY HALL.
ANNUAL MEETING. The annual meeting of shareholders in aud subscribers to the City Hall was held on Thursday afternoon in that building. Toe Hon. C. W. Dickson (chairman) presided, and there were also present Hon. C. 8. Sharp, Messrs. N. A. Sieb, B. Layton, H. N. Mody, and F. B. L. Bowley (secretary).
The annual report for the year ended 30th June, 1902, was submitted as follows:
COMMITTEE.
The Hon. J.J.Bell-Irving resigned the post of Chairman on his leaving the Colony in May last, and the Hon. C. W. Dickson filled the vacancy. The Hon. C. 8. Sharp was elected on the 23rd December, 1901, to all the vacancy occasioned by the resignation of Mr. H. B. Pollock, K.C.; and the latter has sinca rejoined the Committee. Mr. H. Hursthouse acted as Secretary in May | and June during Mr. Bowley's absence.
STATE OF THE BUILDING.
In August, 1991, the inferior. of the building was redecorated, the electric light extended to the entrance hall, staircase, corridors, Chamber of Commerce, and card room, and the doors of the Museum glazed, at a cost of $2,620). The
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