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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume IX, Issue 57, 7 March 1874, Page 2

Wk in New Zealand have not much to complain of on the score of church decorum. We believe that our churchgoers behave themselves as rationally as in most parts of the world. The worst that can be said of us is, that many of us go to see and be seen, to air our jewellery and Sunday clothes, our young people to meet and be met But we have not got the length of shouting, as in a public meeting, " hear, hear," when anything spoken accords with our own ideas of the fitness of the sentiments utttered; or cheering, or throwing up our hats when the vigor of words carries us with the speaker, or we are stirred to the depths with his eloquence. The ways of our American cousins are not our wayß, however.' In : the land on the other side " the crystal wall," they send round handsome single young women to make;, the' collections, anction their,, seats, and bid one congregation againet the other for the bast

preacher. Nor do tbey stop at thie. I Ihey would appear to lend their voice ■ to that of tho preacher very much as they do to that of. the politician. In alate issue of on American journal w read tbe following extraordinary— or, nsjt appears to us, extraordinary— proceeding :—«« There was," says the exchange referred to, '« an .unusually large attendance at_ Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, laet evening. The scenes during that part of the sermon in which the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher alluded to the recent butcherings in Cuba, forcibly reminds one of old times, before tbe war, when Bsecher's voice was often raised against oppressive slavery in that section. When he spoke of the long struggles of the,' littlo. bands of Cuban patriots that had so persistently resisted all the force-that Spain could briDg against them— said that such heroism deserved at least a recognition, the enthusiasm of the audience could no longer be restrained, and they Woke forth in long-continued bursts of applause, the ladies waving handkerchiefs and appearing ns earnest as the men. Again, when Beecher hoped that this Government would proceed in the matter with all moderation, and that nothing would be done rashly, but tbat after an appeal to Spain for justice, if that nation should fail to punish tbe authors of these cruelties; and if it should appear tbat she lacked tbe force to do it, then said Beecher solemnly, let the justice of tbe nation fall. The enthusiasm of the audience here broke out afresb, and with like disregard and recklessness as to time and place. Tbeir enthusiasm showed bow mucli.. they were in sympathy with the speaker." We— puritanically, perhaps— should be inclined to express an opinion that the audience had exhibited their .profanity rather than their sympathy. But why, after all, should not a congregation be allowed to ■ express their sympathy with eloquence in a church as- well as the attendants at a political or any other meeting with eloquence from the platform ? — Herald.