GRACE.

Feilding Star, Volume XVIII, Issue 153, 30 December 1895, Page 2

GRACE.

to the editorSir,— The epistle in reply to mine by the gentleman who has not the courage to affix his own name thereto, but shelters himself under the norn de plume of " Better Word " is before me. Sir, it is not " Better Word " be wants bat a right mind to appreciate that grace which he cavils at and rejects by sending it to the " wilderness of everlasting no." Such a remark is only worthy of snch a mind. It was the shockingly profane use made of the term grace which induced me to write. If he bad asked in a decent manner for the meaning and derivation of the term, hundreds in Feilding and her environs, conld have given him an answer thereto. The same writer, only a few days before, charged the Apostle Paul with " writing rot," and spoke in the most disrespectful way of that grace which saves. I took him to task, he then apologised, but repeated his contemptuous use of the term in both his letters. It was on this account, after waiting until his second letter, written in a spirit of braggadocia, that I replied. The boundless conceit of this man to set himself up as a judge to accept or reject a term in common use, the meaning of which is clearly defined in the Lexicons and other works, is surprising. Mark, he tells us in his first letter that he did not want book knowledge thereon, that he was acquainted with what dictionaries and other works had to say. This was mere idle boast, for in a post script, when replying to mine, he tells us that he has discovered grace to be a Latin word— which it is not. It is an Angli-cised-French term, derived by them from the Latin, This much knowledge required no great learning as oar illinformed friend might have known. A reference to any decent Lexicon would have given him all the information he required, and had he that knowledge he boasted of, and which dictionaries afford, he need not have made any inquiry at all. His comparison of myself with the "wee herd boy " in the matter of Scottise history and of theology, together with his remark on the " grand early history of Celtic Christianity," serves to show the absolute folly of a man who has not yet mastered intellectually the first principles on which the Christian dispensation is founded — which is grace " For by grace are fe saved through faith." What knowledge can he have of Celtic or any Christianity who is ignorant of the meaning of the term grace, and, for the same reason, what judge can he be as to the proficiency of myself and the wee herd boys in matters of history, theology, etc.? At the same time my friend in thrusting at me has most clumsily wounded himself. If these wee herd boys are so well acquainted with the subjects above referred to (which I believe), how comes it that " Better Word " differs from them in regard to the very term now in dispute between us, and, not only with them, but with the elite of the Scottish theological faculty, such as Chalmers, the Bonars, and others. " Better Word" may not have had the advantages of the majority of his better informed countrymen, or he may be intellectually below the average Celt. Be this as it may, the solution of this interesting problem I will leave him to work oat. It will, doubtless, beguile the tedium of many a weary hour, and furnish good and wholesome food for his enquiring mind. I cannot conclude without thanking him for unwittingly supplying me with the necessary proof to establish my former assertion that " Better Word " has not kept pace with the majority of his countrymen in knowledge, and is a fossil of the "Long, long ago," utterly ignorant of the meaning of terms in common use, and equally ignorant of that common courtesy so necessary for an intercourse with each other. It matters not whether his silly productions are under the norn deplume of " Farmer MoWfast," or the equally silly cover of "Better Word." They are alike destitute of sense and civility. I am, etc,, J. E. Boots.