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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIII, Issue 17, 19 January 1878, Page 2

To TnE Editor of the 'Evening Mail.' Sir—Having been one of the small but very appreciative audience last night at Mr Charles Bright's lecture on " Sabbath observance," I should like to be allowed to say a few words in reference to it. He spoko in his usual easy pleasant manner —a manner that, also as usual, was somewhat marred by a habit of sneering at everything clerical, which is by no means so pleasaut. The fatal drawback to his lecture was that he kept industriously belaboring an imaginary monster. So far as Nelson is concerned, the gloomy, ascetic Sabbath of which he drew so striking a picture is no longer known, if indeed it ever existed. " Sunday should be a day of relaxation and enjoyment," —" the policeman should not be called in to interfere with innocent diversion." Why " who deuiges of it?" As a matter of fact" the good folks of Nelson do pretty much as they like of a Sunday. Many take a stroll with their wives and little ones—some drive out into the country—some travel by railway. The majority, it must be admitted, go to a place of worship at least once a day, a practice that is good-humoredly tolerated by the pleasure seekers. Our formidable police force has never yet, I believe, been invoked to drive the reluctant street-Arab to church, nor, if invoked, is it at all likely that "the force " would appear. Iv plain English, Mr Bright's lecture, from beginuing to end was, as addressed to a Nelson audience, a preposterous anachronism, and a mere beating of the air. Yet some measure of compassion and forbearance may be vouchsafed to the lecturer, even by a " salaried and diploma'd clergy," when they consider the difficulties of 'an itinerant philosopher, who, like themselves, must live, and who, therefore, if he canrot find a good round grievance ready to his hand, must invent one. A gentleman who has taken much pains' in preparing a lecture on Sabbath observance intended for, and for aught we know, applicable to, say— Dunedin, ought not to be expected to re-construct his oration because he finds it quite inapplicable to such an easy-going place as Nelson. No right-minded cleric would deprive a poor lecturer of the same privilege that he hims.elf uses with regard to his old sermons. If they do not fit in with the'facts-so much the worse for the facts. Much allowance should also be made for a speaker who is obliged, if he would draw a full house, to be constantly saying pungent and sparkling things. The public is not to be defrauded of its full quota of sneers at a body of men, who fortunately for the peace of society, and we may add—of itinerant lecturers—caunoi retort m kind. Sydney Smiths are not common among the clergy, or Charles Brights would be rather more guarded of speech. Yet it must, at times, be rather painful to a man, who is not altogether ill-natured, to have to concoct, for the amusement of his hearers, bitter gibes against a class of men whom he knows, in his inmost soul, to be at least as honest and as unselfish as himself. I am, &c, Caroluß llabkt.