The Evening Star TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 3 1874

Evening Star, Issue 3417, 3 February 1874, Page 2

The Evening Star TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 3 1874

Ip the history of the civilized world had not proved that every advance in liberty, civil and religious, has only been gained by persistent struggles against ignorance, superstition, and bigotry, we should look with apprehension on the tendencies of the questions now agitating all nations. In Great Britain, on the Continent of Europe, in .America, and in the Australasian Colonies, the same movement is going on between two classes, both professing to be actuated by the most philanthropic motives. On the one side we have the majority of the clergy j on the other, the best educated among the laity. His Honor Judge Chapman, a few evenings back, is reported to have said that there were only two professions of which the members could be said to be “ educated ” —the legal and the clerical. It must have been said in a moment of forgetfulness, for we think on reflection his Honor would hardly exclude the medical profession or that large section of the laity whose early training has been fully as liberal as the most learned in those two professions csin boast of, and who have superaddecl a knowledge of the world that neither of them can fairly lay claim to. In fact; s'p. far as worldly experience is concerned, neither can be said to

have fair opportunity of gaining it. The lawyer, as a rule, sees the worst side of humanity; the parson the best. Both have their held of observation colored by their own avocations. We cannot, therefore, accept the dictum of either as a standard by which to judge of liberty. One class would bind it within the limits of statute law; and the other would invoke the aid of statute Jaw to compel obedience to. what he conceives to be, the interpretation of a Biblical code. Or failing that, under the color of spiritual guidance, he would institute an inquisitorial examination into private acts, dictate times and seasons for reading and study, and say where and what books shall be read, cn* taught. We hoped that the decision arrived at respecting opening the Athemeum for Sunday reading would not have been disturbed, but that the clerical party would have been satisfied with the strong protest they were enabled to make on the vote taken on Friday evening. We are sorxy to see they are not content, but purpose attempting to rescind the resolution. Itis therefore necessary that the whole bearing of the question should be clearly apprehended by those who will be asked to express their opinion on the matter.

It is difficult to understand the position taken up by the opponents of the resolution. It cannot be that they believe it is a breach of what they term the “ sanctity of the Sabbath,” because precisely the same objection will apply to the management of every well-con-aucted Sunday school. In each of them there is a library and a librarian ; the children are allowed to take books in and receive them ; and the librarian has really more secular work to attend to during the Sunday than he usually gets through during the same time on any day of the week. Nor are the children restricted in their choice to theological works. It is perfectly true that the books are under the supervision of the teachers of the school; but they do not always consider it necessary that all that are admitted shall contain matter strictly and literally true. In fact, we have seen hundreds of volumes of so-called religious novels in Sunday school libraries, that contain as arrant trash as most of those so prudishly objected to by the clerical party of the Athenaeum. Here then is the dilemma of that party: they train up children to read a class of imaginative works, delivered to them on a Sunday, by a librarian who considers he is doing a good work by serving them on that day ; no restriction is laid upon them as to reading; they may take these books home and read the remainder of the day, and be considered doing good rather than harm. But when they leave the Sunday school, the very habits formed there are pronounced sinful; the library is to be closed lest the Sabbath should be broken. The books are to be such as please a particular party: and thus they are denied a privilege they have been taught to value by the very men who would deprive them of it.

We know that this will be pronounced an unfair statement of the case. It will be replied that the only objection was to allowing reading in the library, and that everyone would be at liberty to take books away on the Saturday. But we would point out, that while this may meet part of the case, it does not meet the whole. In fact, the Colonies are in many respects peculiar. Great numbers of our young men have no homes, strictly so called, where they can enjoy that quiet so necessary to profitable reading. Many of them find it necessary to live at hotels, in which there is constant noise and bustle, and where few can afford the expense of a private room. Others form small clubs where each has his sleeping apartment, but where his withdrawal from the society of the rest might be regarded as a damper upon their common enjoyment. Others living with their parents in houses of limited dimensions have fathers, mothers, brothers, or sisters, with different wishes to gratify, and who do not feel inclined to impose that silence upon themselves that is necessary for the enjoyment of a book. A thousand nameless contingencies besides unsuitable houses might be named to render a quiet hour’s reading at the Athenaeum a positive blessing ; yet all these are to be sacrificed at the shrine of what must be pronounced the worst of all tyrannies—the tyranny of a minority over a majority. We by no means think that were it the other way —were a majority in favor of keeping the Athenaeum closed—the right or wrong of the matter would be established. In political matters it has been found expedient for minorities to submit to majorities ; but that forms no precedent for religious questions. It is only because religious obligation is ill understood that the application to it of the system of majorities is tolerated. The religious social law is “ You shall concede to everyone the same liberty you claim for yourselves.” But the alerical party are not willing to do this. They say, “We affirm that to open the Athenaeum reading-room on a Sunday is a breach of the Fourth Commandment • therefore you shall not break it.” This is the overbearing spirit which has led to war, rebellion, anarchy; it is the spirit that our forefathers resisted at the Beformation; it is the spirit which is now at work throughout the world; it is of the world —worldly—the Pharisaic spirit so often and emphatically condemned; it is the spirit that looks upon a fellowjaan, and Jeads to saying “ Stand aside,

lam holier than thou it is the spirit of might crushing right, that assumes to do one thing as a religious work, and condemns it when done by any other than those approved, in an approved way. It is a spirit which, persisted in, will tend to precisely the evils it professes to desire to avoid, and opposed to that religion the clerical party profess to hold.