SABBATH OBSERVANCE IN DUNEDIN.

Evening Star, Issue 3446, 9 March 1874, Page 2

SABBATH OBSERVANCE IN DUNEDIN.

(From the * Church News. ’) We shall watch the result of opening the Dunedin Athenreum with keen interest, because wo confess to feeling much.sympathy with the class for whose sake the change is proposed, and with the apparent earnestness of those who have proposed it. We objected in common with very many, to the proposal for opening the Canterbury Museum on Sundays, because that step would in all probability have led on to Sunday trains, Sunday refreshment rooms, and in time, possibly, to the opening of public-houses on Sundays ; and many who are now able to enjoy their rest on the Lord’s Day would have had it taken from them. But the case is different with an Athenaeum, the subscribers to which for the most part live iti the town in which the Institute is situatid, or in the near neighborhood. And we must say, that the crying wants of that numerous class who, iu our colonial towns, are compelled to live iu hotels and boarding-houses, the total absence, unless they are blessed with kind friends, of everything like quiet and comfort on the Sunday, and the temptations wh ch beset them in consequence, appeal loudly to our sympathy and Christian charity. ‘ IT any one talks of the “ narrow end of the we can only say that we should like to live what help we could to drive in farther a wedge which would be the means of splitting m pieces a narrow and uncharitable Sabbatarianism, taking all possible care that the said’ wedge shauld not n any way tend to injure the quiet thankfulness, and the happy rejoicing reatfulness, which are the character! istics of the Civilian' Sunday.