SABBATARIANISM.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume III, Issue 147, 6 November 1863, Page 3

SABBATARIANISM.

[From the Times.'] The Channel fleet has made an invasion. It has not attacked France, nor appeared in the Baltic, nor threatened America, but the flag of Admiral Dacres has been flying in the Frith of Forth, and the Free Kirk of Scotland is roused to arms. The Commission, the Special Committee, the Presbyteries, and the ministers are in active communication with each other, and are taking steps to avert the danger. They are using their utmost influence “ with the Government,” they are petitioning the Admiral, addressing the Admiralty, and appealing to the Duke of So-

merset. The Commission of the Kirk is engaged in anxious discussion on what the leading speaker calls “ a very .important question in many aspects of ita most important question in reference to the government of the country; “ a mos', melancholy thing;” and “a most solemn consideration.”

Our readers need not be alarmed, Leith is not about to be bombarded ; but the fact is the fleet has invaded the exclusive right of the Free Kirk to the employment of Sunday. It has infringed on a monopoly ; it has accepted the visits of some Scotch people at 11 o’clock on Sunday morning, who ought instead to have been under the wing of the Kirk. The cannon of our men of-war and frigates have been exhibiting in successful rivalry to the great guns of the Free Church pulpit. The population has been carried away captive, and their leaders cast themselves in alarm at the feet of the chiefs of the invasion. We assure our readers that this is no exaggerated description of the state of alarm into which the Free Kirk has been thrown by the sudden appearance of the Channel fleet. The jdain English of the matter is very simple. It is customary for the ships of the squadron to be opened when they are in port to the inspection of visitors at certain times, while the officers and crew are given more or less permission to go on shore. Neither the Government nor the Admiralty have thought it necessary for the religious behaviour of their subordinates either that the crews should sit with their hands before them all Sunday on shipboard, or that the landsmen should be compelled to confine themselves to a distant sight of the ships on the only day on which in many cases they can see them. With the religious feeling which marks our public regulations, the Admiralty have provided for a decent observance of the day. A chaplain is ou hoard every ship, and the officers and crew attend Divine service. But after this the Admiralty have considered that ships are as lawful places to walk upon as lawful sights to admire as anything on land. The Scotch Kirk however, have “ an idea,” as they call it, almost peculiar to themselves, that any amusement on Sunday is unjustifiable, and therefore when Admiral Dacres was coming to the Frith and Forth a few days ago an address was presented to him by the Sabbath Alliance of Scotland, bringing under his notice, not very respectfully, as we think, “ the great importance of issuing such an order as will prevent the general public from being received on Sabbath as visitors on board of the ships” under his command. The memorialists, as represented by the Chairman, whose name, Mr. Shandy would have been glad to know, is Blackadder, coolly content themselves with no ottier argument than “ that such an arrangement is in accordance with the sanctity of the Sabbath, and will meet with the general approbation of the religious people of Scotland.” The audacious Pharisaism of this address seems to have roused Admiral Dacres’s ire, aud he contents himself with informing the Chairman that “ on board her Majesty’s ships Divine service is regularly performed, and no irregularity permitted that would disgrace that or any other day.” He very naturally, therefore, sees uo necessity for preventing the public from simply visiting the ships after the hours of Divine service, any more than for preventing the officers and crew landing from the squadron. Thus repulsed, the Alliance appealed to the Admiralty, but received a still more tlecisivesnub, and at last they had nothing left but to protest. So the subject was brought before the Commission of the Free Kirk, at Edinburgh, a few days ago, in the extravagant terms we have quoted above. We are somewhat puzzled how to treat this curious ebullition of Sabbatarianism. We are not inclined to be indignant at the assumption of these memorialists, for it is evident they are thoroughly in earnest and mean well. But the fact is that, to use their own language, they are possessed bj “ an idea.” The Scotch mind is the most curious compound of idealism and materialism that can be conceived. The same people who have produced some of the greatest metaphysicians of Europe have produced also the hardest and keenest men of business. They are as careful of sixpences as they are of abstractions, and they are perpetually embodying their ideas in the hardest and most material forms, They have an idea of Sabbath observance, and they crystallize it into the grossest and most iron-bound externaFshape that their hard and tough understandings can fashion. We regard their proceedings, therefore, on this subject as the inevitable fling of determined enthusiasts. We are not concerned and not disposed to write against it. We regard the theory in

itself with the same indifference as the pet crotchets of High Churchmen or Low Churchmen, Dissenters or Romanists. We dare say their ideas are very necessary for them, and do them All good things are gained by antagonisms. Truths are struck out by the clash of contraries, and passions are the elements of life. We would not check for a moment the free play of these Scotch Sabbatarians, any more than the struggles of different scientific men. Let them have their idea, and work it out to their hearts’ content. We understand their enthusiasm, respect their efforts at consistency, and admire their hardheadedness. We confess they hit straight, and we sympathize with their fighting propensities. But they must really be content with a clear ring. A fair field and no favor is all they ask. They ought to know that their antagonists are just as good as themselves, and thaffthey have no right to talk as if they were the salt of the earth, and as if every one who disagreed with their theory'was irreligious. When they assert that the arrangement they ask for is in accordance with the feeling of “ all the religious people” of Scotland we beg to inform them that they are mistaken. Love is blind, and no love is so blind as the love of a theory. To a theorist his hobby is the one particular pet of the world, and he has no eyes for anybody else’s nurseling. We attribute it, therefore, to nothing but a natural self-absorbtion that these Scotch Sabbatarians forget that other people, quite as good as themselves, have very different ideas about keeping the Sabbath. Numbers of honest, sober, moral, and religious people do not consider it in the least contrary to their duSunday, and we claim for those good people as much liberty and free play for their ideas as we allow the Tree Kirk. The memorialists seem to think it very hard *that the Channel fleet should give their flocks an opportunity of disregarding their theory, and they want the Admiral and the Admiralty and the Government to enforce the Free Kirk idea of Sunday on the people of Leith. But they do not reflect that if such a step were taken it would be nothing less than enforcing the opinions of a religious body on the public by the direct action of Government. They would think it very hard if the Government were to issue an order that people should go and see the ships of war on Sunday. But it would be just as hard for a party who are at least as numerous and as good as themselves, if the people were prevented from visiting the fleet on Sunday. These people are not as infallible as their pardonable enthusiasm leads them to imagine, and it is unreasonable to demand that an opinion which has been repudiated by some of the wisest and best Christians a that have ever lived should be enforced on a whole comnmnnity, a majority of whom disagree with it. Let the Kirk use any influence they_like’with their they think it tneir duty, let them enforce by every means in their power every shred of observance which has been fastened on a Scotch Sabbath. We may differ from them and argue against them in many particulars, but we shall not complain of their enthusiasm, nor object to their making as many converts as they are able. But when they try an order from an Admiral to insist on Sunday being observed in British ships to suit their particular ideas, and demand that the regulations of the Queen’s Service shall be modified to prevent their flocks having any temptation to think differently from themselves, we protest in the name of common sense and common fair play. Let them regulate their own places .of amusement as they will, but they have no more right to expect that the Queen’s ships shall alter their regulations to fit the Free Rirk notions whenever they happen to anchor in Scotch waters than we should have to insist on Dr. Candlish spending Sunday afternoon in listening to the bands in the parks whenever he comes to town.