DEMORALIZING PRAYERS,

Otago Witness, Issue 765, 27 July 1866, Page 9

DEMORALIZING PRAYERS,

(Spectator.)

It is impossible to deny that all those clergymen from whose vigor of mind and piety of heart we expect tbe best teaching on anj critical religious question, devoted themselves last Tuesday to explaining away the Humiliation day, rather than moulding their audiences into tbe state of mind suggested by the word " humiliation." . . . But cveu some of those who celebrated the day — even tbe Bishop of London, who, at the request of the Archbishop of Canterbury, invited his clergy to open their churches for prayer and humiliation last Tuesday did their best to strike at the proper idea of the day. That idea undoubtedly was, as hinted in the Archbishop of Canterbury's letter requesting the service, that, as all other remedies had failed and the plague still continued unabated, we should do tvcll to regard it as the scourge of some unobserved national sin, which, if we could only detect and give up, the scourge would cease. In fact, there is precisely tbe same notion involved as that of the attempt of the Greeks, in the first book of the " Iliad," to discover and remove the cause of their punishment, where Apollo goes through

I'the Greek camp "like unto the night,*' hi* \ quiverful of arrows rattling on his shoulders^ and shoots, bis arrows striking first the cattle and the " swift dogs," and afterwards the aTmy themselves. (Indeed, with us, too, does^ not the prayer against the cattle plague contemplate somewhat anxiously cholera in tbe background, and wish to see it kept " far from our borders," — say among Greeks, or Italians, or other comparatively worthless persons?) The Greeks in the "Iliad" had, however, the advantage of us, for Calcbas, the son ofThestor. was able to tell them exactly why the plague came, and what would remove it, — while we humiliate ourselves vaguely and in the dark, hit or ini3S, as it were, with no better guidance than' the Bishop of Ely's, who tells us that since a nation, qua nation, has no immortality, all national sins are punished by national calamities on earth, and tbat, therefore, this cattle plague, with possible cholera looming behind it, must be the judgment on some national crime or viee — particulars unspecified. It is, however, the wiser wish of the Bishop of London to deprecate speculation on the special moral cause of this calamity. He took as his text our Lord's too often forgottea words — which we notice are abbreviated by the Record with a most unseemly "&c," so little does it like them, and it leaves out altogether the Bishop's special explanation of them — " Or those eighteen on whom the tower of Siloam fell and slew them, think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem ? I tell you nay." Now the Bishop took care to explain that special calamity must not be supposed to imply special sin, that the cattle plague comes from God only as the whole government of the world is God's, and that we are not to speculate on the special sins which caused it, but rather each of us to repent of the sins of which each knows him«elf to be guilty, and to use this national affliction just as every private grief that comes really home to ua is used— aa a special occasion for learning to know ourselves better ag we are, and therefore of approaching nearer to God. That is true teaching no doubt, only that many of the events of any week would bring it more closely home to us than this, which we do not hesitate to say is an unfortunate occasion for inculcating it. The courageous Dean of Westminster must have felt this even more strongly than the Bishop of London. His sermon was a yet more radical blow at the theory of special humiliation than the Bishop's. "The nations of Europe," he said, " on whom the cattle plague has fallen, are not to be thought on that account sinners above the rest of Europe ; the counties of England and Scotland which have suffered most from this grievous pestilence are not therefore sinners above the rest of Great Britain; the individuals on whom it has fallen with greatest severity are not therefore greater sinners than those who have altogether escaped. We are hushed into eilence. We are raised out of ourselves in the presence of the Almighty." And the lesson of the calamity is, according to the Dean, first, resignation of heart to all trouble ;— next, a call to patient scientific inquiry — why did not the Dean rebuke Parliament for having put a ! violent end to almost all chance of scientific inquiry by slaving at once every creature attacked ?— lastly, pity and sympathy for the poor suffering brutes themselves and the larger sympathy and pity for all human suffering. AH this is fine and true, but it is impossible not to be struck with the fact that it 13 a protest against the day of humiliation rather than an apology for it. Is not the suffering of the small class ruined or injured by this plague, a drop in the ocean to the normal and regular suffering of a large class at tbe base of English society, who have never known what it is like to possess a cow, much less to lose one ? If we are to humiliate ourselves, and feel bowed down in heart because a few thousand farmers, graziers, and drovers — whom a subscription properly applied would soon relieve— are suffering bitterly, what are we to say to the chronic misery of our paupers, to the deep-dyed chronic sin 3of every great city, and tvery agricultural parish ? We have no humiliation days for these— none for hurricanes, which make thousands into widows and orphans in an hour — and yet we make this small pecuniary calamity a special subject for humiliation and prayer.

A complimentary concert is to be given to Mrs Mitchell, on the 3rd of August, that date having been fixed by that lady, in answer to a kind offer to that effect on tbe part of several gentlemen. We are glad that this substantial recognition his been proposed, and as Mrs Mitchell has always exerted herself, whenever her musical talent could forward public or charitable efforts, wo have no doubt this farewell concert will be well supported by all classes.

By advertisement in the " New Zealand Government Gazette," it is notified that the Post Office money order system has been extended to the following places in New South Wales:—, •' Balmain, Balranald, Beademeer, Bourke, Branxtoo, Casino, Coonabarabran, Gunnedab, Gundaroo, Hay, Lochinvar, Marulan, Moams, Newtown, Paddiogton, Tabul&m, Tarcutta, Urnna, Wallsend, Warialda, Walgett, Woollombi.