FREE THOUGHT LECTURER.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XII, Issue 253, 25 October 1877, Page 2

FREE THOUGHT LECTURER.

To the Editor of the 'Evening Mail.' Sik—lf the lecturer to whom the above epithet is applied had been more *-*• fettered " in his sarcastic declamation last evening he might have more likely succeeded in pleasing rather than shocking many of his hearers. He needed not to make any apology at the onset for not expressing the views of otfjers, or of endeavoring to conciliate his sentiments with many who went to hear him; the result showed that they were as peculiar as they were novel, for if he cared to shape his sentiments and make them acceptable to his audience he would not have run over the widespread track of his unfettered imagination. If we had no other proof Jas to what excesses and madness one ia driven who calls himself a free thinker, we have a sufficient guaranteo in the one who has "honored" onr city by his fantastic eloquence. If scepticism be the first agent of progress, as

onr denouncer of truth, foolishly supposes then the science is never more necessary than when one goes to hear a lecture such as last evening, for then with the Pyrrhonisfcs he is bound to ridicule the barren dispute of the declaimers, and affect an indifference for fche truth in despair of its attainment. The lecturer denounces the leaders of the Reformation, to wifc Calvin, for the just condemnation of Serratus, who denied the Blessed Trinity, the necessity of baptism and consequently a dam's guilt, and this I consider one of the most sincere snd conscientious acts of the Reformation. Before a Christian audience and in a Christian city, he is not afraid to assert that man owes no obligation to his Creator, thafc religion is only for the foolish and weaker portion of God's creatures, and thafc Theology, the mosfc glorious of all sciences, which teaches us the adoration and worship we ara bound to render our Creator, is but a myth, which is to lay prostrate at the feet of blind reason. If we are to credit the testimony of Cicero, the Pagan orator, there was not a sinilf . error which the Philosophers who WR.placed outside Revelation did nofc adopt, nor a siugie vice whi h did not receive encouragement from thier life and writings. Let the lecturer show that where there is faith— without which we cannot have a knowledge of God— there is liberty, for there is always conformity between freedom and obedience of reason. In religion there is all freedom compatible with that safety which an immoderate licentiousness would endanger aod destroy. The submission exacted by St. Paul is not incompatible with the evidence which reason requires. Bufc after being conducted fco the temple of trufch we should not venture presumptuously to cross the threshold of the sanctuary. Mysteries are a. living fire, says a learned writer, which forbids too near approaching. We ought, therefore, to beware of imitating the rashness of the Roman sage whose impatient curiosity impelled him to explore the burning secrets of Mount Etna, until from an immoderate thirst for knowledge he fell a victim to his own temerity.— l am, &c, W. J. Mahoney. Nelson, Oct. 25.