LIBERAL CLERGYMEN.

Evening Star, Issue 3670, 26 November 1874, Page 3

LIBERAL CLERGYMEN.

It were much to be desired that there were more ministers in the Presbyterian Church as liberal in their views and as sensible in the expression of them as the Kev W. Henderson, of Ballarat, and the Kev A. Robert■on, of West Melbourne. Hoth these gentlemen applied themselves in the General Assembly last night with equal courage and ability to protest against and resist the fanatical action of the majority in regard to what he latter persist in calling the “Sabbath” question. Mr Henderson ridiculed the puritanical spirit of the deliverance ” presented by the committee declared that the Assembly was about to take up an untenable pnai■jiion and deprecated the adoption of extreme measures, Mr Robertson reminded his rev, brethren that if they insisted upon a rigorous observance of the Sunday, they must themselves set a better example to their fjocks ; and warned the of the imprudence of their policy, seeing that it was only calculated to invite attacks upon points where they vyere most vulnerable. Iq the course of his speech, he succeeded in putting the whole question in a nutshell:—“ If it were wrong to travel by railways or cabs on Sundays, they should act upon the views they held upon such matters ; and if they could not influence Parliament in req-ect of them, they should bring their influence to bear on their own members who were guilty of the wrong act. It might perhaps not be wrong to drive to church on Sundays in a carriage, if the owners of the vehicles went early enough to give their servants time to put up their horses and carriages and attend the church, but they did not do so. On the contrary, they drove up to the church when they could be seen in pomp and pageantry at the church-door just at the very time worship was commencing, and sent their men away with the carriages and horses, and so deprived them of attending the worship. The committee seemed to him to have gone too hurriedly about their report, and if they went to such a wide extent as they had marked out it would certainly expose them to a great deal of comment. He had travelled in railways on Sundays when he had to preach, and the fact was that there were many men who preached in the city who availed themselves of the train.”