RELIGION AND INFIDELITY. A TERRIBLE PICTURE OF ANCIENT ROME. A PLEA FOR CHRISTIAN UNITY. DR. MACGREGOR AT THE CITY HALL. Auckland, June 20.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 379, 22 June 1889, Page 5

RELIGION AND INFIDELITY. A TERRIBLE PICTURE OF ANCIENT ROME. A PLEA FOR CHRISTIAN UNITY. DR. MACGREGOR AT THE CITY HALL. Auckland, June 20.

The Rev. Dr. Macgregor, of St. Cubhberbs, Edinburgh, addressed a crowded audience at the City Hall last evening. After referring briofly to the pleasure he had experienced in visiting New Zealand, and bo the kincj and warm -welcome that ho had received here, Dr. Magregor entered upon a eulogy of this colony and its resources. He said that when God gave to our race New Zealand he gave them a magnificent heritage, a fair and a goodly land, and that on the half-million of people who hold these islands there lies one of the greatest responsibilities that ever fell to man's lob, that of building up, in these fair shores, a nation footed on the one ground on which the great nations and empires shall ever rest, the love of righteousness and the love ot God. He. was deeply impressed with the conviction that the people of New Zealand, and in a still greater degree their brethren in Australia, were founding the great nationalities of the future ; but if they eliminated in that mighty process tho element of religion, which was the one source of sustenance of all private and public morality — and they would not beabletoeliminateib— they would be doing the greatest harm, not only to themselves, but the gravest harm to generations yet to come. He hoped and prayed, therefore, that the people of New Zealand would keep their young and mighty nation near to righteousness and near bo God.

A SIGNIFICANT FACT. Dr. Macgregor proceeded to lefer to the progress of infidelity in the present day, and drew some very forcible comparisons between Rome in the time of Cresar and the world of the present day. He said it was ordained by the infinite wisdom of the Almighty that tho greatest event in the history of our carth — the birth of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ— should occur in the land of the Roman provinces. Rome was then the metropolis of the whole civilised world, and the riches of the east, west, north and south were poured into her treasures ; philosophers and adventurers of every clime, the best and the worst on the face of the earth, found there a congenial home. He had come to the conclusion that if bhey would find man at his best, and unenlightened by this Book (the Bible), and what this Book contained, they musb seek for him in Rome. If they would find Rome at its best, they must seek it in the age of Augustus on the day when their Master was born. He could not but regard it as. a most astonishing instance of the overruling providence of Almighty God that, while the ruthless hand of time and war had destroyed so much of Rome, it had spared so much in the city of Augustus that men in all future times might see with their own eyes what it was, and, inferential^ 7 , what the world was on the day when his Master was born. They knew with more certainty what was going on in Rome and in other cities in that mighty empire, what men were thinking and saying 1900 years ago, than they knew of what was taking: place in England or Scotland 500 or 600 years ago.

MAN AT HIS BEST. If they took Rome in the day when Christ was born, they had man in his prime. Rome had gathered to herself all that was best in the past history of the world, and had developed to the utmost the virtues which ennoble and the vices which degrade mankind. The Parliament of no age had surpassed the Parliament of Rome — it was the age, in short, of as great orators and lawyers and politicians as the world had ever seen. The, military activity of the period was great, and countries so widely distant as Syria and Britain were annexed by Roman armies. The literary activity of the period was very great, and almost without parallel in modern times, They would find men in ancient Rome who would match men of modern times in art, in architecture, engineering, philosophy, and the age was not altogether devoid of religion, such as it was. It was the midsummer of the world ; man never was so great before, and had never been so great since : and all these things God had given to this single people, to this single city, that there might be to all future time, to the nine hundredth century if need be, conclusive and inefragable proof as to what was the best man could make himself, and with the most ample appliancei and in the ! most favourable circumstances. (Applause.)

A HURRIBLE PICTURE. And when they considered that our boys and girls had books put into their hands leading them lo despise the present era, he would ask them, What weie some of the characteristics of the Roman civilisation ? It was marked by four oubstand- ' ing features : gross licentiousness, inhuman cruelty, suicide, and, crowning all, and explaining all, a blank atheism, and utter denial of a future exia tence. These, he said, were the leading characteristics of the spiritually-unenlight-ened man at his best. Testimony of the licentiousness of the age was preserved by evidence clear and undoubted — preserved not only in writing, but sculptured in stone, and painted on walls, for all * future time to read and know for a warning. Pompeii was to Rome what Brighton was to London, the fashionable watering place of the great capital, and the Romans were essentially a pleasure-loving people. Pompeii was buried in one single n'ghb, and they could read the story of the lite those Romans lived as clear as if they had lived but yesterday. They were a people saturated with the grossestbestiality. Their women and children saw sculptured in the streets, painted on their wall«, and on their furniture such sights of filthy abomination as had never been witnessed amongst tho Maoris of New Zealand, tho wildest savages •of Africa, or of the Southern Seas. Our modern cities were bad enough, but the gulf between them and the Roman city was a measureless gulf. (Applause.) Roman society, in the days of Ctesar, when man was at his best, was, from top to bottom, through and through

A REEKING SODOM AND GOMORRAH. < And he (Dr. Macgregor) firmly believed that this was just; what man would make himself again without Christianity. (Applause. ) There was a gieat deal of human , nature in man, and they all knew it. (Laughter.) The licentiousness of the Romans was, if possible, surpassed by their cruelty. Caesar, when policy seemed to him to demand blood, could without scruple order the destruction of human beings, having no regard to their innocence or helplessness, and the only excuse for him was that he was a Roman, and that the Romans were indifferent to blood. Ifc was when they read of these things they remembered that the coming of Christ had changed all these thing?, a»d that their men were noo as men were in the days of Ctesar. (Applause.)

• ,: MEN* LIKE TIGERS. Dr. Macgregor, in further illustration of the inhuman cruelty of the Romans, drew a terrible picbure of the scenes of slaughter witnessed by hundreds of thousand? of spectators in the Collisoum, which he refered to as the most splendid building ever erected by human hands, and the most wonderful ruin on the face of the earth. These contests, he said, gained such a hold upon the people that they had to be restrained by a law, which enjoined that there should not be more than 120 human beings engaged in mortal combat at the same time. By this kind of sport there grew in men, a thirst for blood, jusj; as it grew in tigers.

SUICIDE WAS FASHIONABLE. Another striking evidence of the spirit tual darkness of these terrible times was the widespread practico of suicide. Ib was the recognised fashionable method of getting out of trouble. There was no idea of the sanctity of life, aud there was no stigma and consequent suffering brought on the family of the suicide. Even so wiso a man as Pliny could &peak about suicide in the coolest possible way. Lastly, there was a blank atheism and an utter hopelessness as regarded a hereafter. It vvas very difficult) to gather what their ideas of religion were. Beyond a rejection of the old mythology, they had no definite opinions whatever.

CATECHISM AND POURIDGE. In conclusion he urged the audience to see that their little ones were reared with a thorough religious education. Those of them who were Scotch he recommended to adopt the recommendation of an old Scotch divine, and give their children porridge and the .shorter catechism, which had made Scotchmen what they are. (Laughter.) It was strong, substantial food. Tho humblest child in our land knew more of God and futurity than bhe proudest philosopher of Greece or Rome ; they lived in two different ■worlds. He said : give them their modern civilisation as it is, their systems of government, their schools and universities, their triumphs of science, their progressive mastery over nature, their railways, harbours, steamships, telegraphs, etc., and they could nob suppose it possible that the Christian element could be utterly blotted out.

THE TRIFLES THAT DIVIDE. Finally, Dr. Macgregor made an eloquent appeal to Christians to avoid everything which would tend bo sow dissension amongst themselves, and he read his brethren of the clergy a forcible lesson on the same subject. "Try to minimise as much as ever you can," he said, "the little trifles that divide (applause), the trifles that divide the Baptist from the Presbyterian (applause), and the trifles that divide the Congregationalist from the Presbyterian (applause), and the infinitesimal trifles* that divide the Presbyterian from the Episcopalian (applause). Minimiso it in the name of God (applause). When you and 1 know the great forces banded together for the ruin of our faith, it is a scandal and treachery for one body of Christians to be looking askance at another. (Applause, ) Those of you who know Gaelic will remember the grand words ' Children of Gaul, banded together shoulder to shoulder ' (applause). All the ministers of religion ought to be banded together, shoulder to shoulder against the common enemy that is thundering ab your doors. There is much to give uneasiness to every faithful Christian as he looks out on ths future that lies before us. We have Romanism, and I desire to speak with respect of llomanism — Romanism holds on to the cardinal doctrines of the faith, although she makes many errors. We have Romanism on one side and Ritualism, which is ten thousand times worse, making progress on the other, and I'll say this (I speak of Home, and I presume it is true of the colonies, though I hope not), that we have gentle, tender natures, tired of needless dissensions and squabbles, seeking peace in Rome. We have strong-minded and cultured natures wearied with the worry of creeds and churches and sects and ' isms ' with uncharitableness, and bitterness and jealousy, sometimes elevated into Christian virtues, seeking peace in scepticism. And between the two, when I see the once strong fabric of British Protestantism torn by internal dissensions, I sometimes think, j although I hope and believe I am mistaken, that instead of gaining it aeems actually to be losing ground. For ourselves, who believe that the Christian religion has been the cause of the greatest blessing to the woi*ld, the one great lesson is shortly this— that we should get out of it the pleasant thoughts that are in it, prize it more truly, honour it more constantly, and try, with God's help, to live more worthy of it. By living lives worthy of our religion you will best recommend it to your fellow-citizens of New Zealand, and keep up the flame of piety in the sacred precincts, in the homes and hearts of the nation, inspiring your children with the light of the Bible, and build up in this fair and distant land a race of strong and comely women and a race of brave and gallant men. Do this, and when you are dead and gone our God will bless you and make you a blessing, and New Zealand will be one of the mighty powers of the world." (Loud and prolonged applause.) During the evening hymns were sung by the audience led by the united Presbyterian choirs, with Mr W. Culpnn conducting and Mr W. Baxter at the organ, and at the close of the service a collection was taken tfp in aid of the City Mission Fund.