ON THE DECADENCE OF RELIGION.

Evening Star, Issue 3423, 10 February 1874, Page 2

ON THE DECADENCE OF RELIGION.

Mr Gilfillan, tho well-known essayist and poet, recently delivered a lecture on “ The Decadence of Religion and the Depreciation of the Pulpit, ’• in Edinburgh. The audience was crowded, hundreds not being able to secure admittance. He spoke of the heresyhunting of tho present day, and said that the spiritual inquisitors had not received half their meed of scorn and reprobation. It was Fortunate that there were in other Ohurchps cities of refuge at whoso gates the bloodhound had to pause and turn, snorting and malcontent, back. He said this heresyhunting was to his certain knowledge driving many away from all Churches, who say, “if this be religion, it is certainly not Christ s, and therefore it shall not be ours.” He spoke then at considerable length on the subject of revivals and other attempts to galvanise a dead Church. He traced their history ; spoke of those in Dundee, Kilsyth, and Ireland; quoted a clergyman in the neighborhood of Kilsyth as to the little result they bad produced there ; alluded to that going on at present in Newcastle, and gave the opinion of sensible men in that town on the subject; pointed out the radical oehcieucies of revival movements; said, ‘• They that sow the wind reap tho whirlwind ; they that raise a devil should be able to lay him ; and the experience of hundreds of years shows how some religious agitation becomes fanaticism, and what a fiend fanaticism often IBand said, “ On the whole, they are anachronisms, and while multitudes even yet can be got to attend their conferences and gatherings, they have on reflective men little influence.” He concluded thus : “ In my next lecture I intend (God willing) entering on a very important phase of the subject—the uncertainty of opinion which at present prevails, begins to prevail, although we are very far indeed from haviug come yet either to its middle, its climax, or its end. I close with a single remark. The great evils we have to grapple with as religionists at present ara two. One is the growing indifference to all religions subjects with a large, class of the community. Overwhelmed with business or lapped in pleasure eager to be hastily rich, they are neglecting the great subjects which used to occupy our fathers, or attending to them only in the most perfunctory manner, leaving everything to a few prayers and gasps on a deathbed. It is really fearful this greed of gain, home people are seeking after it to the exclusion even of enjoying themselves in this poor life. They will enjoy themselves one day, but in the meantime they are so busy accumulating the means of enjoyment as to lose enjoyment itself; for when - they aS W tho Bau “ time tor death. Wealth comes too late, and while tuey have nob enjoyed themselves so much

as they might have done in this life, they have lost the other altogether, or, at least, have made no proper preparation for its coming. But while this indifference is spreading with many, and is lowering the tone of thought, and rendering men less men than they were in the days of other years, there is, on the contrary, with others who do think and read and feel on these subjects too much one-sidedness—some recognizing nothing but what serves to support their own foregone conclusions on the orthodox side, and entertaining little charity to those who differ from them, while many go as far in the other direction. Well may we cry out, with poor Tom flood— O for the rarity Of Christian charity Under the sun. The effect of this is something like that described by Milton when ho speaks of the giant angels self-dwindled into pigmies ere they could enter into the Hall of Pandemonium. And so we are in danger, with petty jealousies and minute hairsplittings, and miserable mouse-like feeding on the parings of truth, of becoming a race of little men. Let us be thankful that broad platforms exist in some places, at any rate, and let our prayer be for more of that fine instinctive common sense which recognises truth wherever it is to be found, and is not afraid to acknowledge and generously to proclaim that it does. Amen.”