A COMPLAINT.

Evening Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2506, 27 February 1871, Page 2

A COMPLAINT.

To the Editor,

Sir, —1 should like, through your columns, to call attention to a subject which appears to me to bn of considerable importance, but which, from various causes, bas.not, I think, received that measure of attention which its merit demands. I shauld have liked much had the matter been noticed sooner, but in the present state of political excitement, such things are apt to be overlooked. It is better, however, in my opinion that such a thing should lie done even late, than not at all, and so without further preface I may at once say, that the subject L refer to, is the extraordinary course adopted by the Rev. D. M. Stuart, Presbyterian Minister of Knox Church, in regal'd to the Bishops of the Church of England Dunelin; which conduct, I know well, hM greatly surprised, and aLo deeply grieved, a large number of the Presbyterian portion of our congregation. I think it right,-.at the outset, to state distinctly that I should he extremely sorry to utter an ’unkind or disrespectful word in regard to these rev. gentlemen. _ In their own church they are doubtless entitled to all honor and respect, and as strangers come to sojourn for a time among ns, they are entitled to our courtesy and kindness; but then in their official capacity, as diocesan bishops, we Presbyterians don’t know them, and can’t be expected to acknowledge them, uur Church recognises no such office; we have again and again, in days gone by, re: fused to have it forced upon us; and our forefathers suffered and bled to rid themselves and their posterity of its sway. We are accustomed to boast of the liberty achieved for us by the labprs and of the good old 'Scotch Covenanters. We award all praise to the worthy old dame, whose stool so deftly thrown rased up the storm which finally delivered our Church from the rule she hated so much. And well may we do so, for they nobly won a title tp our esteem and gratitude. I can fancy with what desperate energy that famous stool would have been driven at the head of the minister of Knox Church, had its owner been at bis “lug” when he penned his unfortunate letter of invitation to the Bishops. He hag mapy a time discoursed on the doings and sufferings of the venerable Covenanters, often lias he told the story of Jenny Gecldes and her stool, and recounted admiringly the noble deeds of mapy who lived in these eventful times. And jet, in a moment of weakness, or shquld I not rather say amhition, he forgets it nil, and regardless of the principles he avowed at his ordination, and in virtue of which alone he is entitled to Ip minister of Kuox Church, he deliberately takes a step whereby he offers a gratuitous insult to the memory of our revere I forefathers, and also to the congregation of which he is minister. And all for what ? For no other reason apparently than to obtain favor in the eyes of those who arc accounted great, as “Lords over God’s heritage.” Now, however such doings may ap. pear to others, I confess that to me they wea- a very suspicions aspect. I know of no grounds on which a Presbyterian minister, placed over a Presbyterian congregation, could have any right to invite, on his own authority, an Ep ; scopalian Bishop to preach to that congregation at the ordinary services of Sabbath-day. And when Mr Stuarji so far forgets himself as to take such a step, I have no'hcsitation in saying, it served him light when he was treated with the courteous contempt which his proposals met with. I don’t really understand how the congregation of Knox Church tolerates such proceedings on the part of their minister. There are men who at one time would most determinated have resented such a movement as a daring attempt to interfere with and destroy their most sacred liberties. But there seems to be some sort of leavening process going on among them, gradually but surely destroying the essentials of our sturdy Presbyterianism, and which may ere jong terminate in most disastrous and mischievous result’. I strongly suspect that the writer of a letter which appears elsewhere upon this subject, signed “A Scottish Presbyterian,” has been in some measure subjected to this procsss, otherwise I scarcely think he could, un ’er such a signature, have given expression to the sentiments which that letter contains. There are, moreover, I fear, evident indications of the same proces®, in the remarkable silence and reserve manifested generally on this subject, by tbe ministers and members of our Church at large. Not one voice has been raised against such an unusual proceeding on the part of our ministers. The thing he has done must cither not be thought very wrong in itself, or those who disapprove of it must be afraid to speak their mind on the subject. Either way the ca®e is bid enough ; and when such an ex* amp’c is set us by our ministers, need we wonder if some of our people, encouraged (.hereby, 'mould leave our church, with its plain and simple service, for another which has greater external attractions, and which they hive boea taught by this action on th§ part of the minister of Knox Church to rc* gard as something very superior to their owr. Another Bishop has lately arrived among us of whom great things are spoken. He may probably, upon trial, he found more pliant than the others, having studied the principles of Loyal aup rc profoundly. Ahi the cougre*