The Evening Star FRIDAY, JANUARY 30, 1874.

Evening Star, Issue 3414, 30 January 1874, Page 2

The Evening Star FRIDAY, JANUARY 30, 1874.

It is very rnuph to be regretted that the so-called religious element is obtruded into every public arrangement, and very generally in a most repulsive #H’m. Professing to deal with man’s interests lying beyond this world, it is from its nature a mere matter of belief, and consequently varies according to the form in which it presents itself to the mind.' Perhaps no two human beings can be found, excepting the utterly ignorant, who agree in their religious views; and these being beyond the possibility of proof, it might naturally be supposed everyone would be tolerant of everybody else’s religion. .But instead of this, exactly the reverse is the. case. As a rule everybody condemns everybody else’s faith, and devises means whereby spiritual theories may be woven into bonds fettering human freedom. Men differing bn numberless points may, however, agree on one, and, banding themselves together, may agree to compel society to submit to their dictation on that one. Accordingly we find the religious element dictating how to conduct educa tion, when to travel on the roads, when railway trains shall not run, and bn what condition children shall receive instruction in arts and sciences acknowledged to be true and the knowledge of which is , essential to their social well-being. It is even assuming to dictate what books shall be admitted into a public library and what rejected, and to condemn certain classes of works because they do not square with preconceived religious notions. It seems to be thought something monstrous that books, which are generally the mouthpieces of highly cultivated minds speakjng to the, world, shall be read in an Athenaeum, while sermons, which the oral expression of less elaborated thought destined never to travel beyond the tour walls of a church, are to be poured libitum. Did it never strike the rev. gentleman who favored us with a letter on the subject last evening that there is a class of minds not likely to be satisfied with that ephemeral mode of instruction called “ preachingthat its doom was sounded when the first types gave their record to the world ; that the “ preaching” required for the day is of a higher and more enduring character than that i which was at one time the only means at cbtxunafid ; fbr comm'unicatiiig iustruc-

tion to the masses; and that the churches of the future, instead of being merely inclosures in which a ritual is gone through morning and evening on the first day of the week, will at no distant date become halls of theology, in which students instead of listeners will sit on the benches 1 In the absence of such high-class churches, the Athenjeum may do good service, nor do we think its value lessened because oti its shelves are books that suit the tastes of different leaders. The underlying error of the clergy is that the human mind can be moulded at will into whatever shape or form preacher or writer may strive to give it. They, therefore, would keep the world, in leading strings, and hold one end of them in their own hands. It is too late. If they will lead, it must be through efforts to press forward to higher methods, not through endeavors to stereotype the past. Rituals, or services without them, formed and fashioned on models two hundred • years old* have done their work, but were never made to be worshipped and'perpetuated to the exclusion, of, more effective methods. We look to opening the Athenaeum as a proper educational step, and if it should be the means of leading to a more thorough method of communicating religious truth, the City, the Province, the Colony, and the World will be great gainers.