The Evening Star. WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Morning News, The Morning News and The Echo. MONDAY, JANUARY 6,1879.

Auckland Star, Volume IX, Issue 2716, 6 January 1879, Page 2

The Evening Star. WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Morning News, The Morning News and The Echo.

MONDAY, JANUARY 6,1879.

For the cause that lacks assistance, For the .wrontf that needs resistance, For tho futuie in the distance, Aud the good that we can do.

J The success of Nonconformity was the subject of an interesting discussion at the last annual Confess of the Established Church fif England, held in Sheffield. The tone and scope of the discussion on that occasion showed that the Church is alive to the growing tendencies and aspirations of the age, and is no longer chargeable with that reputation for intolerance and indifference to the social requirements of the masses which it possessed at a former period. The tendency to graft upon English society all the more questionable features of continental life and character has not escaped the observation of the clergy of England, who now recognise the fact that the pulpit is not their oaly sphere of labour, but that, in order ro retain their hold on the sympathies, and their influence upon the .moral and religious education of the people,

they tnust identify themselves more closely wiife the dreams andasphations of the masses. Debarred, as the Annual < hutch Congress is, from discussing points of Church discipline it has evinced a strong desire to handle the »reat social problems of the day, and to unite the pulpit and the platform in the task of solving those questions, 1 lie lust question of importance discussed was that of "free and open churches." Mr Bernard Wake pointed out that "the body of the old parish church was coramoa for the parishioners, and that any encroachment upon it deprived the poor of their inheritance." He condemned the system under which "Dives was in possession of the pews and Lazarus was shut out," and he argued that "the base of the Church was the floor of the parish church, but now the base of the Church pewed in the few, and pewed out the many. ' The Earl of WhanickJFe expressed strong partiality tor " the old wooden pews" (possibly because of the facilities they afford for cosy aud secret slumber during a dry sermon) ; but he stoutly declared his intention to wage war "against the appropriation of seats. He " was not in favor of the rich man having all the plums of the church, and the poor one the suet outside." This simile, taken in conjunction with the Earl's liking for "large square wooden pews " (with soft cushions, of course) would appear to indicate that the Earl is one of those aristocratic patrons of the Church whose theology is largely connected with a partiality for good living. Canon Boyd sketched ont a plan of assisting the clergy in out-distiicta by the appointment of school masters and itinerant libraries. Naturally in so important a discussion the literature of the day came under consideration. The liev, H. J. Jones thought that "penny periodicals and half-penny factions sold by newsboys in the streets accomplished some good by encouraging a taste for reading, and accustoming the reader to the phraseology of educated language, expressing his belief that tho new.-paper Press generally was fast producing that result. With a degree of liberality, which contrasts very favpurablyfwith that of the clergymen who condemned Dickens' novels as immoral, though he hud never read them, this gentleman was of opinion that "an honest study of popular literature might deliver many clergymen from fche utterance of orthodox platitudes." The observation will strike a sympathetic chord in the hearts of a large number of regular church-goers. "Of course," remarked the rev. gentleman in conclusion, " a clergyman must not expect to find himself in the serene atmosphere of the " Church Times" or the " Rock," but if ho could keep.his temper and not mind a sharp occasional rub, lie might teach some wholsesonie lessons through cheap popular literature, as well as learn some rrom it. It existed, it was a growing fact, and the clergymaa who honestly and heathily used it would do far more to correct that tvhich was questionable in its contents, than he who, seeing only what he disliked, continued to bark without being able to bite, and, in so fur as his individual altitude aud influence was concerned, alienated those whom he mig.it have drawn towards a better life, and whom be was bound so to draw by all the means within his reach." These are wholesome truths, and they afl'ord ground of hope that the divergences which have grown up of late years between religion and science, between theology and the social aspirations and modifications of the age may yet be reconciled. As Mr Herbert Speucer, in his chapter on " The theological bias," remarks : —"To maintain the required equilibrium amid the conflicting sympathies and antipathies which contemplation of religious belie:s generates, is diflicult. In presence of tke theological thaw going on so fast on all sides, there is on the part of many a fear, and on the part of some a hope, that notlnug will remain. But the hopes aud the fears arc alike, groundless, aud must ha dissipated before balanced judgments is 6'ocial Science can be formed. !-"-« «i—, iiaiiSi"""*""*'"""" »*■■' ■ ~ — cec,d<'.<l uiic auot/iur hitherto, the transformation now in progress is bnt an advance from a lower fo:in, no longer fit, to a higher and a-fitter firm; and neither will this transformation, noi any kindred transformations to cone hereafter, destroy that which is trauiforincd, any more than past transformations have destroyed it."