SUNDAY EVENINGS.

THE observer of English social life who signs himself "John Plummer," has recently given us some encouraging proofs of the soundness of the respectable artisans of the old country, of their freedom from the pestilence of socialism and irreligion, of their eagerness and patience in following up through all the paths of science and history the arguments of the lecturer who successfully exposed the vapid fallacies of the infidel.

The short experience of the Free Public Library shows the same happy proclivities to exist among the same classes here,—as indicated by the books most read ; works of fiction, especially those of a lower taste, being set aside for those of inquiry and study, these significantly including theology, as well as botany, chemistry, and other scientific and useful subjects.

While in England the men who impudently assumed to be the spokesmen of the people— Bradlaugh and other loud blustering unbelievers —have been anathematising each other in furious conflict as to whether or not the Being of a God is compatible with their principles (which we believe they call " secular"), the scientific and soberly argumentative vindicator of Christianity draws away the ears of the multitudes who wisely leave the relation between secularism and atheism to be settled by then votaries, and for their part hear and read theology and science.

This is well; for whatever bigotry, sectarian or sceptical, may say, true theology and true science must be mutually helpful—they cannot disagree. It would be strange indeed if the study of science, which encourages the investigation to give its due emphasis to everything which can be called a fact, or a phenomenon, should lead men to ignore, as unbelievers do, that well attested series of startling facts and phenomena which compose the evidence of Christianity.

Perhaps it was with a full consciousness of this that the first attempt was made by some scientific men to introduce Sunday evening lectures for the people. It may have been without any intention to oppose or rival the usual Sabbath evening worship at the churches, but with the hope of attracting, by the name of science, from lower pleasures, or from mere listless idleness, many who habitually absented themselves from church and chapel ; but the present phase of the movement which seems to us to be fatal to its success is, that of apparent opposition to what the leaders call "orthodox religion." The successor to the St Martin's Hall " Sunday Evenings" are registered as "a religious body."

The lecture is often called " a discourse." This, the lecturers at St George's Hall, Langham place, think desirable, for "they regard rationalism as including the two elements of religion, moral and intellectual culture." In a handbill distributed at the door we read, "There are a great number in London who have no sympathy with the religions of so called orthodox Churches, and who would be glad to see an impetus given to rationalism, and a more truly liberal, free, and catholic spirit breathed into the community. The Church of Progress makes this its direct mission. It desires to separate religion from superstition ; and while it inculcates the lessons of morality and the love of knowledge, to elevate the minds of the people above useless forms and baneful creeds. "

Very good! They are to get knowledge—and it is to make them religious—but it is not to help them to believe anything, else assuredly they will have a creed, whether written or unwritten, and it is to be presumed that the anti-orthodox Sunday evening services of "the Church of Progress" shall have no form whatever—or is it only forms that are useless and creeds that are baneful, such as those of the ordinary Christian denominations are supposed to have, that the people are to be elevated above ? Perhaps so. For at all events they have their forms as we shall see—and as to then creed—why is not the negation of the orthodox enough ?

Well. For the forms which are not, like the orthodox, "useless." There are two of these places—South Place Chapel, Finsbury, and St George's Hall, abovementioned. In both there was the necessary form of paying for tickets of admission, at prices varying from six pence to two shillings. Next we find that both before and after the performance hats were kept on by most, and the sole of publications by the changers of money, not sitting, but going about hawking them at one penny each. A lecture on astronomy, in which there was no mention of nature's God, but of nature as if it was a personal being itself, and in queer grammar of "a nebulæ" and "this phenomena," concluded by an assurance (of whose certainty no doubt he conceived himself possessed of undoubted evidence) that "many Protestants would persecute Lyell, Darwin, and Huxley, did the power exist, as Galileo had been persecuted by the Romish Church."

This was Mr. Browning's "discourse" at the chapel. As to Mr. Hartwell Horne's, at the Hall, who seems to have neglected to read his excellent father's work on the Introduction to the reading of the Scriptures, and to have lost much by that neglect, he is not much to our purpose, for Mr. Baxter Langley, in introducing the lecturer, said that " the Church of Progress was not responsible for his opinions, nor he for theirs," and we are informed that there was nothing peculiar about his lecture except that he classed the Divine One of Nazareth with "other reformers," and attacked, as a literary critic, Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress as a work "singularly overrated, and which nobody could read except in youth," in which astonishing dictum he ventures to defy the deliberate judgment of the best judges who have ever written of Bunyan, together with the test of centuries, and of the translation of the allegory into every European language.

But there were other "forms," which proved certainly the least "useless " of all. There were in both places elaborate bands of music, a succession of songs, chorusses of 150 singers, solos, duets, pieces from celebrated oratorios,—well known professional singers performing, at whose several achievements "the congregation frequently manifested their delight by clapping as heartily as though they were in a theatre" These are some of the "forms" of "the Church of Progress," and, considering the gratification of so many tastes, and being informed by the lecturer besides that " astronomy was very useful —at sea," one would think it no wonder if the "entertainment," as the attendants persist in calling it, was an eminent success, as one enthusiast declares, "the music alone is worth double the money,"—to say nothing of the religion without form, the pleasant unction laid to the soul of having been cheaply doing religion, while saturating one's senses with pleasure. But no ! Those " people " are really incomprehensible. Is it that they have been reading theology as well as science, and have found them very good friends ? That, however they applaud fine music, they know well that this sort of thing is not even a good caricature of religion, but a mere transparent hypocrisy ? Whatever the cause, we must record the fact that these services do not succeed. While the Bethels and Ebenezer, and the Churches of the orthodox Christian denominations which the lectures seek to oppose, are filled and increasing more and more without either payment or æsthetic attractions—and often with little of intellectual power in the pulpit. Mr Baxter Langley had to announce to the entertained, before the band performed the last march, that "these Sunday evenings do not pay," and he appealed for pecuniary help by better attendance " They will be continued to the Lady Day quarter, but if they are not better supported, it will "become a question whether they shall not be discontinued." This is indeed reassuring—who knows ? Perhaps these gentlemen, desiring, as they announce, to spend a rational Sunday evening, will, after Lady Day, successfully accomplish it, by leading the people to prayer to God, and preach to them, the Gospel of the grace of God, teaching them to believe, and not for ever ringing the changes on the word "deny." They have enough of shams—and more than enough of doubts. Let them now have realities and verities of faith.

BUTTEVANT.
 The Sydney Morning Herald 11 June 1870,