The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1856-04-09 00:00:00

minds,"—which is the only safeguard for his day
of rest. He is told that amusement is the present
pretext, but that labour will be the inevitable re-
sults of allowing him amusement on the Sabbath.
Thus the horse leech of covetousness would cry, " Give,
give an hour, and give another and another hour," till the
insatiable maw of Mammon had utterly devoured the poor
poor man's day.
What hinders this ? Not the fear of God, or practical
regard to his authority, but LAW, the happy remnant of the
Christian legislation of our forefathers. This it is, that
still defends the poor and needy, and rids him one day in
seven out of the hands of the wicked.
This is utterly and entirely false. Can it
have been written in the belief that it is true ?
It sets class against class. It appeals to the
too general mistrust of the affluent which
prevails among the poor and the needy. It
intimates in pretty plain language that
the poor require defence against the anti-Sab-
batarians, and that our hands are " the hands
of the wicked."
Further on we learn that the poor man is
tempted to steal the rich man's property, and the
rich man to steal the poor man's rest ; if, then,
laws insist on the observance of the eighth com-
mandment, they should also guard against the
violation of the fourth.
We ask you in the name of consistency, in the name of
all honour and honesty, to legislate against all such robbery,
and punish it if committed.
Amen !—no language can be too strong to
stigmatize this Sabbath robbery. But in the
name of common sense, in the name of truth, and
honour, and honesty, and all the other virtues,
who ever dreamed of it ? None most assuredly of
those who longed to give the poor man more
enjoyment, greater opportunities, nobler pursuits
upon the only day on which he can avail himself
of them. Dr. INl`Neile has an object in these
misrepresentations. He beats the air--he fights
with shadows--and would persuade the good easy
world that he is a very champion of deliverance
from most devouring monsters !
I now leave Dr. M`Neile's dogmas and de-
nunciations, and turn with pleasure to his
criticisms.
The pamphlet on which he is so abundantly
severe was composed of letters written to the
different local papers, and collected as an answer
t o the publication of the St. George's-hall speech.
Its authors, five in number, and all laymen, wrote
without previous concert and arrangement : they
wrote hastily, and re-published hastily. What so
likely as that discrepancies should abound—that
their theology should fail them—that their un-
practised controversial pens should prove traitors
to their cause ? It is a matter of some little pride
that with keen eyes innumerable, peering out for
some unsound part upon which to swoop, scarcely
a single point has been discovered, and the
clergy of Liverpool have flown off baffled and
enraged.
Dr. M'Neile begins thus :
In a series of letters published in the Liverpool news-
papers, and afterwards collected into a pamphlet and
circulated with gratuitous zPal, we are assailed on this
question in terms scarcely polite. The motto of the title
page of the pamphlet commences thus : " Usque adeo pie
ruvat 3fentiri ?"
For once I agree with Dr. M'Neile, and I doubt
seriously whether the motto is polite at all. I fear
we have caught a little of Dr M‘Neile's own
forcible style of expression, and have uncon-
sciously turned upon him the very weapons with
the use of which for years and years he has
sanctified a Christian pulpit.
But if this motto be " scarcely polite," perhaps,
it is not altogether inapplicable.
It was in no speech, when carried away by the
excitement of the moment—it was in no news-
paper article, written and repented of as soon as
written :—it was in the official programme of the
meeting in St. George's Hall, placed in church
pews, and stimulating unholy zeal, that these
words were found :
Reader, that Saviour who died to purchase the Sabbath
and its blessings for you, expects that you in its defence
will do your duties.
It is bad enough to misrepresent an opponent—
it is bad enough to inflame the passions of the
poor by setting them against the rich,—but
when religion is called in only to be falsified, and
most solemn Scripture only to be perverted—l
hardly know whether it be not allowable to hint
that the perverters are saying what is false —and
to threaten them with exposure of the untruth.
Dr. MeNeile thinks we are dreadfully presump •
tuous in expecting any answer at all to an anony-
mous pamphlet. Ho quotes our preface, wonder-
ing that no answer had appeared to our arguments,
and then he continues—
This is modest ! from anonymous and therefore irrespon-
sible controversialists. Clergymen, in their own proper
persons, openly avowed what they conceived to be Scriptural
truth: They are assailed, and, as I shall show, misrepre-
sented, by writers in the public press, who are either
ashamed or afraid to give their names. And then, because
those clergymen abstain from discussion with they know not
whom, they are taunted as incompetent or incorrigible.
Dr. M‘Neile supposes, in the first place, that we
are " afraid or ashamed" to give our names. Well,
if we were, what of it ? Suppose we knew, as
know we must, that we were contending on an
unpopular side—that the drum ecclesiastical had
called to arms, and the clerical trumpet was bray-
ing out its signal, and that we were all
" unconverted," " wicked," " infidels," and the like,
were we in this case bound to reveal our names ?
But there is another argument against allowing
Dr. 111`1\leile to gratify his curiosity, or satisfy his
love of etiquette. Suppose our names were known,
and suppose we were treated with every courtesy
(a very childish supposition), how absurd our
position would have been. We—a broker, maybe—
a small merchant, perchance—on one side ;—the
Clergy of Liverpool on the other. Tabula solvuntur
risu. As it is, Dr. M'Neile has the advantage of his
name—we merely have not the disadvantage of ours.
And with this chance in his favour we are ready to
weigh our arguments against his ; and, most assu-
redly, are we ready to weigh his misrepresentations
against ours

-And now I may as well add that, except for
curiosity to know how he will manage it, I care
nothing whether Dr. M‘Neile answers this review
or not. His sophistical misstatements have been
exposed, though by a feeble pen. Either he can or he
cannot defend them. If he cannot defend them,
he can conveniently say that it is infra dig., to eon_
eider " anonymous and irresponsible contro-
vertialists." If he 'can defend them, and will
not do so, he merely sacrifices what he calls truth—
and I call error—to a feeling of decorum.
Whether this is a conscientious proceeding, is not
for me to judge.

My spade is limited, and I must hurry on. I
admire the way in which Dr. M'Neile criticises.
He, instead of attacking the main argument, quotes
some insignificant passage, and misunderstands
what hequotes

In the fret letter, a writer, under the signature of " B,
asks,

" Does Dr. M'Neile, does the Rev. Mr. White, really
believe that his flock will desert him for an oratorio ?"
Mr. White can answer for himself. I can answer for
Dr. M'Neile, that he really believes his own flock would
not desert him, whatever the House of Commons might do
with the Crystal, or the Town Council with St. George's
Hall ; and therefore he really believes that " B," by putting
such a question, in connexion with this subject, betrays his
utter incompetence to appreciate the higher, nobler, and
disinterested motives which actuate the true disciples of
Jesus Christ.

It is with feelings of deep humiliation that " B."
learns his utter incompetence to appreciate those
nobler motives. H 3 fears that his incompetence
(if it exist) will not be removed by Dr. M`Neile's
pamphlet. He can but hope that had his critic
read but three lines further on, he would have
exonerated him from the charge.
Does Dr. M'Neile—does the Rev. Mr. White—really
believe that his own flock will desert him for an oratorio ?
If they do think so, they are either too modest or they have
been singularly unsuccessful in implanting strict Sabbatical
views. We do not believe it. Church-goers will go to
church ; and the evening congregations will not thin one
iota owing to the rival attraction of St. George's Hall.
He next becomes indignant because another
writer accuses him of " calling upon men to rein-
force the Judaic observance of the Sabbath." He
calls this a misrepresentation. The writer
_

evidently had not learned how nicely to distin-
guish between ceremonial Sabbaths and moral
Sabbaths. Indeed, it is a matter of such difficulty
to us, " unconverted" ones, that I am fearful lest I
still fall into error on this point. Orthodoxy, in
re Sabbatica, is like that Mahometan bridge we have
heard of—s 6 slender, so sharp, so dangerous.
Now is the " Churchman's" turn ; and here
Mr. Bardsley comes to Dr. M`Neile's aid.
Mr. Bardsley s arguments have been already
noticed in the Daily Post, in, a letter signed " A
Cambridge man," and it is unnecessary for .me to