THE ATHENÆUM COMMITTEE AND THE FREE TABLE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 3862, 3 July 1874, Page 3

THE ATHENÆUM COMMITTEE AND THE FREE TABLE.

TO THE EDITOR. \ Sir—l would not have publicly referred to the action of the majority "f the Athenaeum Committee in abolishing the "Free Table," and in refusing to allow a place in the Reading-room to the Religio-Philosophical Journal and to the Maryborough and Dunolly Advertiser, had you not in your leader of the Ist hist, 'alluded to the action of the minority. ■. I have to observe that, probably, without due investigation, and as the meetings of the Camt mittee are not open to the Press, you li ive made statements in.your leader not consonant with fact. For example, you say that it was "at the request of a numerous body of the subscribers" that the Committee "determined to put an end to the ' Free Table.'" This statement is ■ inaccurat°. lam not a-\\areof even one subscribe:!' having asked the Committee to put au end to the " Free Table." It is true that there was a memorial, signed by fifty members, asking that no more copies of the Maryborough and Dunolly Gazette aud Religio Philosophical Journal be laid on the cables of the Athenaeum. Of this fifty, six were clergymen, and sixteen were either present or past office-bearers of churches. The memorial was as follows : — "To the members of the Committee of the Duncdin Athenaeum. Gentlemen—We, the undersigned, bes to draw your attention to the marked articles in the Maryborough and Dunolly Gazette and ReligioPhilosophical Journal, in the hope that you \vill not permit any more copies of those papers to be laid on the tables of the Athenaeum. ■ We also request that you will not allow any paper or pamphlet to be laid on this table without your

The marked article in tließ iligib-Ph losophical Journal was an advertisement, and that in the Maryborough and Dimolly Advertiser closely followed in some respects the book that was reviewed in your columns last week, " The Physiology of the Sects." That any member of the Athenaeum signed the memorial without reading the papers to which it referred, I am loth to believe; still the fact remains that an "advertisement" is called an "article," and that the Maryborough and Dimolly Advertiser's name is changed to the " Maryborough and Dunolly Gazette." What I have so far written disposes, I think, of the statements in the first sentence.of your leader. And here; had you admitted that the papers already mentioned had been excluded from the Reading Room because of their advocacy of '"the peculiar; views of a few," I should have stopped. The Athenaeum Committee, or at all: events the majority of the subscribers, have the power; and I suppose the right follows . from the might, to exclude such books, pamphlets, and newspapers as they thiuk fit; and however much I -might have questioned the propriety of. excluding periodicals '" advancing the peculiar views of a few," 1 should have acquiesced in the majority's decision. You have written, however, as an excuse for the action of the majority of the Committee something very different. You say :—

" It was not against this or that sect of ;Christiaiiity, hut against the very foundations of mo-rality--a morality common to all the civilised world- that they [Unit is the newspapers excluded] set their face." Ot course, those who voted for the retention of these paptrs are impliedly accused of also setting their face against the " morality common to : all the -\ civilised world." Ido Dot stop to enquire what is meant by the civilised world, nor whether " mora ity ?' is non-existent where civilisation is absent.' The statement contaiued in this sentence of yoii; s I deny, and challenge you to the proof. Before, howovsr. dealing particularly %yitli the papers, 1 may stite that you have raisud n question anil put forward, an excuse, which certainly th)j majority of the Committee neither clearly, raised nor put forth. Mr Cargill, in his usual manly anil straightforward way, in urging that the papers already so often mentioned bb excluded,, stated, that his objections to the papers were that they "advanced the peculiar views of. a. few,-'that they were spiritualistic, that they ■ were .blasphemous, that they shocked the feelings ami consciences of the .majority of. this Christiait communi y." Mr Stanford, the only other Committecinan who spoke, or rather gave, a reason for his vote, said that as r he was a representative,, it wa*rbis duty to do what his constituents -desired, and if the majority of the subscribers wished the "Advertiser" retained, he should not. oppose its being placed in the Reading Room. It is nonsense, therefore, to raise the "morality"'.question. The opposition to the papers excluded and to the free table, is based on religious or.theological feeling, indeed, how can it-be said to be otherwise ? An Institute that has Shelley's works, Byi on's works, the Decameron, the works of Apuleius, Dean Swift's writings, not to mention other works on its shelves, could hardiy ask. lor the exclusion of the " Jour- al ''■ or the " -Advertiser "on moral grounds. I may state. for the benefit of your readers who may not have read either of the papers named, that both are Thistle, both teach the. iui mortality of the soul, and both inculcate the grand moral truths proc'iiimed by Christ on the Slount. One — the " Journal " —is spiritualistic, anil has nobly battled against that social ■ cancer of America- -free-love; the other is anti-spir.t-ualistic, st-iting that modern spiritualism is born of-the Dtvil. Bot.h papers are, however,.heretical; if either the Westminster Confession or :the Thirty-nine Articles are -orthodox-. ;; It is tnie that the. journal does publish a quack advertisement.'but is that a ground for the'exclusion of a newspaper ? What Colonial paper does not publish medical advertisements ? Is there not to be seen even in a Dunedin paper Dr L. L. Smith's " Nervousm-ss, Debility, and Skin Diseases" advertisement. And what of that oil which is ■

A balm for every wound, A cure for every ill ? ' And what Colonial newspaper does not now and then pulil.sh reports of cases iv Courts which I need not characterise? Is a-paper to be excluded because of these things? Again, "The Advertiser" gets the advertisements from the Victorian Government. Can. ifc be that the Government of Victoria gives its advertisements to an immoral nen-sjiuper? Nay more—l have read in your own columns quotations from " The Advertiser." Caii it he that you quote from an immoral print? But enough. I challenge you to point out the attack on the morality co.amou to ''all the civilized world."

It is really, to my mind, trifling with the question to say that it is not lieeause of " the peculiar views" advanced by these papers that they were excluded. Ido not deny that some of the articles in them would shock the feelings and consciences of a large number in this community. But an article hi your paper had the same effect, as Mr Cargiil has already told you. Would ifc have been, therefore, proper to exclude the Times from the Reading Room 'I I am not saving I agree with the "peculiar views" advocated" byeither the Journal or the A dvertiser. As a fact, I do not; and I think that often the language employed by the writers in advancing their "peculiar views"' is unnecessarily harsh. But who am I. or who is Mr Oargill, that either of us should be a judge? Are the readers of"the Athenaeum to be debarred from reading all sides of all questions ? I read in the Dublin Review— a Jteview that is most able ie doctrine (Catholic) —the following:—" He, that is John Morley in his Life of ltousseau ; speaks of the doctrine of the fall and depravity of man as the false mockeries* of the shrine of the Hebrew 'divinity,' i\s 'the palsied and crushing conception of this excellent and helpful Being, as a poor worm writhing under the vindictive and meaningless anger of an omnipotent tyrant in the large heavens, only to be appeased by sacerdotal intervention,'

(vol. 11., p. 196), and again calls our idea of God that of ' a grim Chief Justice of thn Universe'; and another . . . ' that of a blood-smeared monster as from steaming shrine in Old Mexico,'" (vol. 71., p. 207); and on the same page of the Review (see Dublin Review for October, 187.}, p. 298) it is noted that " Mr Morley invariably spalls the uamo of God with a small initial." Was anything ever published in the Journal or AdveiHser so shocking to the feelmgs and consciences of an orthodox Christian community as tins? And yet must Morley 's "Rousseau" bo denied admittance to the I.i Vary, or the Fortnightly Review, which he edits, be banished from the Reading Room ? Lot there be consistency. Surely Mr Morley's " liberty" is akin to the ''license" of the Journal or of the Advertiser'? And I could multiply quotations from modern and much-read books of tilings shocking to the feelings of many. Does not one-half of the Reviews on the table shock our Jewish arid our Catholic subscribers? Why. then, should the Committee frame an Index ExpuryaloriuK, aud begin with a Spiritualistic and a Theistic paper ?

Green's " Fair Haven," a mild book—a book recommended by the Rock—characterises our leadmg theologians in a way that would, I am sure, shock one-half of the fifty who condemned the Journal and the Advertiser ; and must the author of " Erewhon" have Irs works placed on the A thenaeum Index ?

One word more, and lam done. The Athenauni is—and 1 challenge denial of this monthly receiving newspapers and books paid for out of the funds of the Institute as heretical —I use the same definition as 1 have done before -as either of the excluded papers. And yp.t the majority of the Committee are to be praised for refusing to receive free of cost these two papers ? I leave the foregoing remarks to the judgment of the subscribers of the Institute. In the past, they have not allowed party or sectarian feeling to influence the management, and I do believe they will act in the future as they have clone in the past. They imagine that the Athenaeum can never le the home of culture if what a sect terms blasphemy is excluded ; but that one way to culture—if not the way—is to view every question from every possible side.—l am, &c, Robert Stout.

Robert Stout.