The Evening Star FRIDAY, AUGUST 4, 1871.

Evening Star, Volume IX, Issue 2641, 4 August 1871, Page 2

The Evening Star FRIDAY, AUGUST 4, 1871.

We do not know whether or not our readers have paid attention to the accounts received from time to time of the doings at Nunawading in Victoria amongst certain sectarians, who have marked out a new faith for themselves. As is usual in such cases, there arc the dupers and the duped ; ajid, as cus-

the latter discover the has been practised upon ttiern, ttd calumnies seem too black to charge Upon the sect from the thraldom of which the victim has escaped. The revelations in the courts of law in connection with the affair disclose how easily human beings are gulled in religious doctrine. Many of these believers in the Messiah are described as being more than ordinarily shrewd in business matters ; they are not ignorant in the common acceptation of the term, and yet they have adopted religious theories by which, according to the newspaper reports as published in the Argus , they justify themselves in the practice of the most revolting immoralities. Some of the comments we have seen by various writers very freely condemn the clergy for these irregularities —we think unfairly to a certain extent—although the lesson pointed to not only atNunawading, but at Utah, in various parts of the United States, where, as Hepworth Dixon points out, sectarians with the oddestnotions, gather together and flourish, and in Dunedin itself where spiritism has established itself, forms a subject for the gravest consideration. The fact is, the subject is intimately connected with the education question, upon which clear and definite ideas ought to be formed, as a general system for the Colony will come under consideration of Parliament this session. We are quite prepared to admit that no attainable amount of education can lead to unity of belief in religion. From the nature of the case it is impossible ; for difference of mental constitution tends to modify the degree of force with which historical evidence acts in producing conviction : blit while the pet dream of tens of thousands of good men may be thus summarily disposed of, a more practical question remains for the clergy themselves’ to answer. The question for the Church of to-day really is whether the mode of religious teaching is adapted to our requirements. Some few years ago, in view of organising a system of teaching in a Sunday school, inquiry was instituted as to the qualifications of teachers and scholars in one of the most important towns in Great Britain. It was clone quietly and without any idea on the part of those subjected to the investigation that it was taking place; so that the result may be fairly relied upon. It was not confined to one sect, and as our purpose is to lead to thought and not to controversy, we consider it sufficient to say that the chief mode of instruction adopted by the teachers was relating some story supposed to be illustrative of some religions truth : in scarcely a single class outside one denomination were the Commandments taught, in very few classes did the teachers appear to understand the meaning of the words of the text they were endeavoring to explain, and in many cases the pupils were evidently better educated than their teachers. This then was the way, and this to this hour is* the way of what we call religions teaching. What wonder that the world breeds Nuna wading Messiahs, Joe Smiths, New Jerusalem disciples, spiritists, or any of the thousand and one fanatics who dream themselves and others into social and moral iniquities 1 It is the best to speak out on the matter, that the clergy and their flocks.may.he prepared to act together ; for unless there is concert between them, no better state of things can be initiated : there must be the theological as well as the secular school if the Church is to do its duty. Just let us contrast the mode marked out by Professor Sale of studying Ciiaucek, which we dare say he carries out to the great profit of eve'iy pupil, with the slipshod style of disseminating religious thought.- Every word in Charger is examined and traced to its derivation and primary and more remote significations. The structure of the sentences, the grammar, the historical associations, the pictures of manners, the modes of thought—in fact, everything that bears upon the subject is carefully analysed and explained. But in our churches we are left to what can be gathered from a more or loss labored essay upon an isolated passage often very distantly bearing upon the truth enforced, and with the disadvantage of having scarcely any sympathy with the modes ol thought, language, and expression of the preacher. Without an exception, our clergy would place the study of Chaucer very far behind the study of that record on which our laws, morals, and religious belief are based ] but if the analytic method be necessary to the thorough comprehension of what Chaucer wrote, it is mere .superstition to imagine that the other can bo understood by inspiration. We commend this subject to the careful consideration of the clergy.