The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and Echo. THURSDAY, JUNE 20, 1889.

Auckland Star, Volume XX, Issue 145, 20 June 1889, Page 4

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

THURSDAY, JUNE 20, 1889.

For the cause tliat lacks assistance, 2?or the -wrong that necco resistance, IFor the future in the distance, And tho good that we can do.

It is a hopeful sign of the times to hear from representatives of great divisions of the Church words that betoken an earnest longing after a broader Christianity. Less than fifty years ago Protestant pulpits re-echoed the sounds of strife and bitterness which had their origin in an earlier age. The Reformation, like all human revulsions from gross abuses, was rough in its methods—fierce, uncompromising, carrying with it much of the spirit of the rude times that gave it birth. A<:ta were performed which the calm judgment of after-generations cannot justify, although it may glory in the nobler achievements which dwarf the errors and the wrongs. This period was succeeded ;by an age of internal bickerings and dissensions among the emancipated religionists. We cannot expunge from history the fact that Servetus was burnt at the stake under an edict from the Reformed Churches of Switzerland, that John Bunyan was thrown into prison, and the Pilgrim Fathers driven into exile. The bitter sectarian feuds thus engendered, smouldering for centuries, easily fanned into flame by the breath of a zealot, are, we believe, destined to extinction within the currency of the present generation. This, at least, is the lesson which we draw from resolutions like those that were lately passed by the Lambeth Conference, and from the utterances made eloquent by the deep feelings of a strong intellectual man which were so loudly applauded by the multitude gathered in the City .Hall last night.

It may, perhaps, appear to many a very sanguine view to suppose that Anglican and Presbyterian, Methodist, .Baptist and Congregationalist, will so s.oori be seen standing shoulder to shoulder, animated by sympathies so broad as to embrace all that is noble an 4 loveable in that other great division of the Christian Church which ranges its legions under the Roman hierarchy ; but let us read the signs of the timps. It was recorded in our cable news of'yesterciay how men of em!nence in the Church had conferred with_ the Heir-Apparent to the throne of Britain upo-B the erection of some worthy memorial of that noble martyr Father Damien, who sacrified his life for the good of the leper colony of Hawaii, laid only the other day a memorial tablet was placea in St. Patyl's Cathedra* in recognition of the

distinguished patriotism of the Hon. W. B. Dalley, a Roman Catholic colonist of Sydney, who projected the. New South Wales contingent for the Soudan campaign. We do riot mean that there will be, nor should there be, any surrender of principle, for truth must lie somewhere, and it ought to be very precious to every earnest man's conscience. Bat we may find a basis of mutual help by giving prominence to those noble beliefs and aspirations that are held in common, rather than waste strength in wrangling over the things that divide. It is not for us to question the methods of the Almighty, nor to declare Christianity a failure because more than half the followers of its Divine Founder find- nourishment for their spiritual cravings at another spring than the one from which we drink.

Dr. Macgregor spoke last night as every well-read and thoughtful man must speak who ponders over the tendencies of the age. At no previous period of the Christian dispensation has scepticism so widely saturated the literature of the Mother Country. It permeates the current magazines, tinges the pages of the popular novel, and takes more aggressive form in the essays and lectures of men distinguished in the walks of science. The danger comes not from the coarse scoffing or ribaldry of a Voltaire, but in the subtler garb of a search for truth amid the conflicting " isms" of religious expositors, and the bold assertions of apostles of physical demonstration. This is the position as it was presented by Dr. Macgregor last night, and no dispassionate observer can challenge it. Happily the soul of man, whether subject to Christian influences or not, revolts against the brutal creed of materialism ; we believe there is very little permanent danger from that quarter. The fool who " hath said in his heart there is no God " will remain a fool in the estimation of the preponderating mass of mankind — Christian, Mohammedan and Pagan; but Christianity has to reckon with a more insidious foe, and it is well that its teachers should be reminded without ceasing of the momentous importance of minimising " trifles that divide," and of organising their forces in an army, which, though composed of many regiments, has a common cause. The obstruction that is offered to such a union comes not from the great minds in the Christian Church, but from those lesser lights to whom the term Christian brotherhood is a meaningless phrase; whose petty souls revel in sacerdotal gewgaws, and who have as little comprehension of the broad humanitarian spirit of Christ as the veriest heathen. Happily these are, we believe, a very small and diminishing number. The difficulty now is not lack of sympathy, nor failure to apprehend the need of unity of action, but rather the devising of a common basis. Like Imperial Federation, the fusion is beset with practical and technical difficulties; but these should not dismay nor for ever hold apart far-seeing, able, and earnest men.