SUNDAY TRAINS DISCUSSION.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume II, Issue 54, 9 May 1874, Page 8

SUNDAY TRAINS DISCUSSION.

The discussion on the question of Sunday excursion by rail, waxes •warm in the Auckland Press. It is likely to lead to consequences not anticipated ..by the Otago Presbytery and other clericals who first originated it. It is bringing more prominently before the public mind Han ever, the fact that outside the Catholic Church the religious •world is in a state of utter and hopeless confusion, und given over to wild speculation and doubt such as must end soon either in open lfidelity, or a return of the people to the Catholic Church. The Kirk m Scotland, more especially, seems ripe for some extensive change. " Indeed, Jeanie, I canna bhime you for becoming a Catholic," said an old Presbyterian lady to her daughter, " since I see sic on-going amang our am folk." This anecdote was told me by a brother ot the young lady converted, he himself being a very broad Presbyterian, and who, in fact, professed to belong to no Church, but to be a " Bible Christian," and he set " the Kirk " at defiance. The Euv. Dr. Tulloch, principal of Sb Andrew's, remarked publicly, in allusion to those endless religious divisions now going on among Presbyterians : — " Disintegration is always easy. We have been practising it now for nearly a century and n half, to such a degree as to make our Church divisions a spectacle to Christendom." Can any moral good came out of such a state of things as this. INo wonder the state of public moials in Scotland is now so low ; and no wonder it should be still yearlj declining there, as Bailie Lewis in his recent lecture, told us it was. "Will the Spirit of G-od ever dwell among a people so given over to self-will, religious contention and strife, as the •Scotch Presbyterians now are ? And this is the fruit of the boasted Reformation," so called. Tho Otago Presbytery must have little aaith in the religious sense of their people, if they think that the running of a few excursion trains on Sunday will demoralize them so utterly as they profess to fear will be the case. A Presbyterian minister lately published to the world that the Presbyterians in this colony, at least a large proportion of them, Dever enter a place oi worship, either because they spend the Sunday in drinking, or are i lfected with the infidelity of the age, or are totally indffierant to any religion. If this be true, we need hardly wonder at the fear of the ministers lest Sunday railway excursions may make them worse, ii worse the.) can be made, the bulk of them. But what have we Cathodes to do with the morality of the Presbyterian people? it may be asked. Let us look at home to our own community. Every religious denomination, howevtr, io far as> morals are concerned, has an interest in ihe state of their neighbours. Presbyterians converse and associate with Catholics, and evil communications corrupt good manners. A low state of morals among Presbyterians but too surely implies a low state of morals umong Catholics, too. The baneful effects of the Reformation, like original sin, came on ail. That foul revolt, tne Keformation, not only caused many to renounce the Catholic faith, but it told injurious.y even on such as still retained the faith ; and it does so to this hour. It weakened when it did not destroy their faith ; disposed them to religious indifference, ana as a necessary consequence, to a relaxation of morals. The fact i%, Protestants and Catholics mutually encourage each other in irreligion and vice, when they are bad. There is this also to bo noticed, that whenever the Holy Father and the Catholic Church have been subjected to persecution, and popular insult, the state of religion and morals in Christendom, generally, is very low ; and political combina'ions are set on foot, dangerous to loyalty, law, aud order. This was especially so in Luther's time ; and the present aga is a counlerpart of the Lathemn period in many *ays. The waters of religious and political strife have been let out s and a great struggle between the civil and ecclesiastical power is going on everywhere, oven in New Zealand. Grod, out of "seeming evil,' cm ever "educe good;" and no doubt all this will end at last io strengthening tho Church, and extending her power — a result which her enemies even now admit is taking place. Though the Church may for a time be furcod to recede in some quarters, she advances still mort) in others. If she now be persecuted and depressed in Italy. Germany and Switzerland, she is now free and flourishing and advancing iv Ireland, England, France, America, and Asia. France, when Uupubliean aud Conservative as she now is, has ever been loyal to the Holy See; and she will in due time, whoa she prudently can, come forward iv its support. But there is a time for everything ; a time tc wait., and a time to act.