CORRESPONDENCE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVII, Issue 8326, 5 August 1890, Page 3

CORRESPONDENCE.

RAILWAYS: THE AUSTRIAN AND NEW ZEALAND SYSTEMS. TO THE EDITOR. Sir, Your correspondent wishes to know how it is possible that reductions in fares from 23s lOd to 2s 6d or 3s in New Zealand can succeed when in Austria it is only proposed to reduce from '2,3s lOd to 17s. The matter is very simple. The reductions in Austria are not sufficient to cause two or more fares to be taken where one is taken now for any length and period of time. In New Zealand the reductions proposed are amply sufficient to efl'ect this purpose. To those who have not studied the subject, it seems a thing incredible that two fares of .'is each can make up for the loss of 2os lOd, but the secret lies here, not more than two and a-half per cent of the uses of our railways pay these high fares and the average fare paid by all travellers is only Is 11. My system of . stages has been so arranged that under ib the average fare cannot sink below one shilling (Is). This the accountant of the Railway Department has himself proved to be absolutely certain. Consequently two shillings must be better than one and eleven pence halfpenny. As to population, not one-fourth of our people can now use the railways. Under my system the other three-fourths would come in. That is where the population comes from. Regarding extra cost: The trains have to run in any case, and for every extra 15 passengers carried 120 miles an extra 1241b of coal would have to be consumed. This is the outside estimate.— am, &c., Samuel Vaile. Auckland, 2nd August, 1890.

RAILWAY REFORM. TO TIIK EDITOR. Sir, — notice that Mr Thompson, writing to the Railway Reform League, suggests that Mr. Vaile should bo sent down

to watch the petition though. The Committee's wish for " further written information " looks very ominous. They don't want him there. Would it riot be advisable for the League to find the trifling expenses necessary, and pack him oil' post haste ? If this be not done, there is no doubt that the Commissioners, as Mr. Thompson says, will "have it all their own way."—lam, etc., F. Si'axswick. Kyber Pass, August 4, 1800.

THE KAIPARA STEAMERS. TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —Where was "Sobriety's" sobriety when he penned the letter in reference to alleged doings o.i the Otamatea steamer ? There is only one steamer plying between Helensville and Pahi, yet he writes in the plural number. Again, although the steamer calls at several places on three different rivers she omits Marsden Point, for the reason that she is not constructed to steam over bush tracts a distance of 20 miles to the other side of the island. There L 110 truth in the statement that the captain ordered four drunken fellows whom the steward refused to servo to be again regaled with intoxicating liquor. Such statement isa maliciouslibelon the master of the steamer. If, as lie writes, the steamer is equivalent to the lowost " pub" in Auckland, then I can only say that such " pub" is a very respectable hotel, and in this the travelling public will bear me out. There is little truth in his other allegations. By the tone of his letter, bristling as it does with inaccuracies, I imagine " Sobriety" to be "a man with a grievance" against the master, and who fancies that any steamer trading to near where he may be located should run to suit only his own individual convenience, and go miles out of her course to

pick up his keg of butter or his bale of wool, and when he does visit town be retained a whole tide to enable him to go and hear " Moses in Egypt." Nevertheless as public caterer, having- the welfare of the passengers at heart, I am sorry indeed to learn that he, as a respectable person, should have been, as he alleges, "closeted" with inebriates. If he had only have kicked at the door we would have let him out. The only approach to what he terms rowdyism" that has taken place on board this steamer has been when she has

been leaving Helensville by the early morning's tide. Passengers have come on board over night, in order to save the expense of a bed, after the steward has turned in, and amongst them have been some who may have drank " not wisely but too well," and by their conduct have prevented anyone else from getting sleep. In conclusion, I would ask is it not quite enough for a master to be blazed away at with a loaded revolver to the tune of twenty bullets

whilst manfully sticking to his post at the wheel, and so take his passengers out of danger, to be also shot at in this manner by an anonymous writer, possibly ashamed to affix his name? The only redeeming feature (to my mind) in " Sobriety's" letter is that, while ho takes exception to the quality of the liquor supplied by the hotels to drunken travellers, he very properly and conscientiously exempts that vended by yours, etc., E. Hadrill, Providore. Helensville, August 2, 1890. RELIGIOUS EDUCATION. TO THE EDITOR. Sir, — am pleased that steps have been taken in Wellington with the view of organising specific action herein, and sincerely trust the vital question will receive throughout the whole of the colony the attention it deserves, and if to secure the passing of Mr. Pyke's Bill a block vote is necessary, should certainly urge the adoption of this course. I have long been as the voice of one crying in the wilderness, and now to awaken thought and generate energetic action submit for the thoughtful perusal of our most potent, grave, and reverend seigniors the following considerations. Knowledge is power ! power for good, alas I power for evil ! Every true knowledge must have something to go upon besides internal conditions and conjectures. It must l"\v« a doraain, an ultimate world, or it will oo deperdent upon the thinker's imagination. No for the highest plane of the intellect.; the religious mind, the topmost peak (call it ' Everest), the Bible is the world that is to be studied or known, and besides the Bible there is no other field. Not accepting it", the religious consciousness of the Thcist is forced to think out and conjecture God, according to his own state and character, and to cultivate an anthropomorphism of the most privately personal kind, besides which knowledge is impossible, because there are no facts in which it can inhere. A keen intellect, with no senses placed down in the natural universe, and endeavouring to comprehend it by cogitations, and love it with affections, is the analogue of a Theism I which ignores revelation, and would fain I have knowledge of God. The Word, in its letter, is the missing universe of His all real truths. Here there is something grand and substantial to be studied, and scientifics can begin to be formed, and man, "the minister and interpreter of Nature," can take his place also as the minister and interpreter of the Word. In its lines it is infinitely commensurate with our finite faculties, and can fill them with its knowledge. As against the poor estate of the Theist, reverently believing that there is a God, and hoping and aspiring to think out something of Him from nature and the mind, observe the scientific privilege of accepting the divine humanity of the Lord, the Word made flesh, and the divinity of the Word, graciously enshrined in the pages of that Bible, which we have religiously kept out of the schools. If theology is all this, and if this can be correlated with the operations of the rational mind, a most interesting field of sciences, knowledges, and truths infinitely vaster than those of nature and agreeing with them, is now for the first time revealed

to the conscious gaze of the human mind. What an apocalypse ! " Great and marvellous are Thy works, Lord God Almighty." Theism : The aspiration of theism to a creed of God is impossible to adjoin to a scientific hypothesis of the world ; for that such a fabric as the visible formal universe

should be created by a benign God, which the supposition is, and that a conscious mind, male and female, with large religious faculties, should be the crown of it, and that He the All-Possible, should have left Himself un manifested, a prey to imaginanation and conjecture, when yet shape and form for every other thing are His representative creatures, His easiest manifestoes, is an anomaly to the human heart and intellect, lb declares that the rest of things can be definitely known, but that the exact God and fashioner is a guess; that He who has a Divine heart cannot show a divine face ; on these terms also He must remain forever inscrutable. The closest thinkers of the atheistical school arrive at the conclusion thai) the Unknown and Unknowable blocks the way at- the far end of knowledge ; but; solve the problem to their own content by denying an apprehensible God, while the Theist craves a God, and necestarily believes that faculty is given whereby in some way to reach one, and yet no manifest God is in view. The position is the more remarkable, because the higher, nobler, kinder, and more religious the theism becomes the more likely is it that theism itself is untrue, because is is less likely that such a .Deity as then touches the heart should not reveal Himself, plainly, yea, most plainly, to His suffering and sorely needing creature. The same remarks also apply secondarily to the life after death in the spiritual, world. The atheist shunts the subject, at the peril of his faculties, for ignoring is a dangerous desert, a waste howling wilderness, to a being who worships experience and thought. May not the believer in an immortal state, in proportion as ho believes it substantially, be more and more at fault, if he refuses to extend his

belief to an attested manifestation of the spiritual world, to the men and women in the natural world ? And if he does not affirmatively look far and wide to see the manifestation ? This at least is a fair scientific process. If there be a God, the first likely hypothesis is, that He shows Himself exactly to instruct mankind ; we should therefore search for Him where, perhaps He may be found, in revelation. If revelation contains Him, revelation is the continent of the theory and truth of His presence in the world. So if there be a spiritual world, we should seek it, nob in fancy or imagination, or thought, or in any affection, or beside any grave, but in its actual revelation. Now, this actual revelation, beside the grand trumpet voice of history, is found in the Bible. In claiming for the Bible the reality that belongs to the realms of sciences, we necessarily resort to the spiritual sense, which is co-extensivo with the letter, and has inspired it into existence, and which cannot bo fairly denied by any but those explorers who have studied the whole case. It is not so patent a realm at first, that the human faculties can deal trillingly with it. The spiritual sense is here the theory of the matter. It is incumbent upon the scientist to examine whether the theory fits: He may never havo believed in the possibility of such a sense. He ought, therefore, honestly to guard against prejudice as an end of inquiry. He may admit the possibility provisionally, or he cannot proceed. Ho must be for the trial in the dubitalive affirmative, not in the dtdjitative negative state. This is common to all investigations, in which hypothesis is undergoing trial; or a theory, proof, or truth establishment.

Is this a true bill ? If so, bring in the Bible, listening to its sublime strains. " Lift up your heads, 0 ye gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors." Peering in with an Apostle we shall recognise the mighty force of the triumphant recitative, " Now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first fruits of them that sleep." Into the same edifice beckoned by the four virgins with vestal flame, science, philosophy, learning, religion invested by maximum homo, let the boys and girls enter the sacred precincts. They will here recognise that the penitent lies prostrate in the porch of the temple of truth ; the believer walks in the light which encircles the Holy place ; while the beatified only can bear the full blaze of the holiest of all.—l am, &c., John Abbott. St. George's Bay, Parnell, August 4th, 1890.

CHORAL SOCIETY. TO THE EDITOR. Sir,—l have read with much interest the recent correspondence re the Choral Society and have been somewhat amused to find that one and all should have missed what is to my mind the real point of the argument. One blames the conductor, another the committee, but the blame lies chiefly with the committee ; secondly, with the conductor ; thirdly, with the members. People seem to consider that because a man " professes " to teach music he must necessarily be a solo player on all the instruments in the orchestra, teach harmony, counterpoint and thorough-bass, compose original music, score for a band, etc., but the very qualification which is most seeded in a conductor of the Auckland Choral Society is never mentioned. Any one of the above attainments is quite enough to expect from any man, unless you want him to be "Jack of all trades and master of none." I have the greatest respect for the present conductor as a musician, for is he not a good violinist, a good composer of music, a good teacher of harmony* etc.? And does ho nob

score for a band perhaps better than any man in Auckland ? And yet) "he lacketh the one thing needful." Who among yon all would go to—say, a teacher of the banjo to learn to play the clarionet? And yet the committee have done far worse. I say far worse, because of all musical instruments the human voice is greatly superior to any other. The mechanism of the human instrument is so excessively delicate, requiring the most careful treatment or manipulation, thatit demands constant care, and particular study. You take up a violin and know (because you can see the modus operandi) that by placing a finger there, and drawing ■ the bow across in such and such a manner, a certain effect will be produced; but the vocal instrument is out of sight and cannot be touched, hence the increased difficulties that a voice-trainer has to encounter. It naturally follows, then, that what is wanted for the Auckland Choral Society is a studied voice-trainer, not a mere teacher of singingfor alas, for Auckland ! their name is legion. My advice to the committee is to appoint without delay a voice-trainer as "chorusmaster." leaving the present conductor in his place, and trust me there are better results to be obtained from the chorus than any we have heard yet. There are several other matters mentioned by your correspondents that I should have liked to touch upon, but lack of space forbids it. —I am, &c., J. Ernest Parkin. August 4th, 1890.

TO TIIE EDITOR. Sir,—Your correspondent, " Savini," has expressed his disgust in the press at "Fiat, etc.'a" letter, even if a number of your readers have not do so. But, oh, " Savini," if your opinions are uninterested and unbiassed, why, oh why, did you not) sign your name ? " Savini" goes on to say that there is no doubt the Society has fallen off, &c., and gives his opinion on the subject as to the cause" Politics of the country," " depression," &c. No, no. " Savini," that) wont't do; you know better than to believe such rubbish. Then he goes on to explain the cause of " the low standard to which soloists have arrived," etc. Well, dear " Savini," we like to hear a new voice now and then, even if they don't warble as magnificently (as I shrewdly suspect "Savini" does), but nevermind, dear " Savini," don't be jealous, give the new voices a show, to please the few for once in a way, and by and by the Society will be only too glad to welcome back with jpen arms the old warblers, our dear " Savini" among the number. The committee are not likely to dispense with the services of Herr Schmitt, no matter how many eloquent letters "Fiat," etc., may pen on the subject, or how efficiently Mr. Paque may wield his baton, so, " Savini," set your mind at rest on that point.—l am, etc., August 1, 1890. Pkodesse Civibus.

ST. MARK'S, REMUERA. TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —What Mr. C. B. Morrison wishes t<» attain by his communication re St. Mark's, Remuera, appears chiefly in his concluding remarks. As a comparatively recent and young member of the congregation, Mr. Morrison's opinions are of little avail. The innovations instituted in the conduct of the church services have caused the falling away of a large portion of the older members, and a " certain few " have undertaken a responsibility they now find too much am, etc., R. Pickmebe. Remuera, August 4, 1890. BOYCOTTING. TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —Are we going to have some legislation this session against the system of boycotting, which bids fair at one of the most serious times the colony has ever had to paralyse trade and commerce, and effectually frighten capital! This can only result in decreased trade, and less employment for all concerned, while increased prices will rule for the commodities of every-day life. This will benefit few, and make the many pay through the nose for the luxury of combinations too early for this young colony.—l am, &c. Practical.

GOOD SAMARITAN SOCIETY. TO THE EDITOR. Sir,—The sensible letter of Pastor Birch commends itself to all denominations. lb is true we have a good many societies and " fads, but for the help of the inmates of the silent world (the prison), poor convalescent patients from the hospitals and the asylums, the homeless, houseless, and helpless, we have no great organisations to boast about. Every few days we see accounts of some poor wretch being charged with that great crime of modern timesyclept "poverty," that is to say, lying out in the Domain or the Parks, or being unlawfully in outhouses and sheds for shelter. Again, when we return to our comfortable homes how much thought do we give to the poor prisoner, who yielding to a moment temptation (how many of us have done the same and fortunately escaped detection) finds himself within a prison wall a mental and probable physical sufferer for months or years, with the finger mark of scorn ever recorded against him and his, or of the numerous poor sufferers who lie on the Hospital beds, some never to rise out of them again ! How apt are we to give a few shillings or pounds as the case may be, here and there, and consider our duties are fulfilled in that) direction. We do not want spasmodic revivals (which speedily die away), but practical hard-headed but soft-hearted men and • women to aid in a society on the lines laid down by the worthy pastor. All honour to him for the sentiment of a man and a brother in humanity. I shall be glad to help with ir.y mite of subscription when tho society is organised, and may it commend itself to the hearts of all alike.—l am etc -j ___ A Jew. '