The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1860-04-28

The clergy Of Scotland are amazingly exer-
cised just now about the slavery Institution of
this country and the troubles cf DR.. Cheever's
church. both Of which questions formed the
text Of some very silly and violent speeches
at meeting in Glasgow the other day.
The truth is that these men know. nothing at
all about the subjec:. Of which thew DISCOURSE
70 nippantly, and, let us add, with such con-
summate self conceit and impudence. For ex.
ample, it is their custom to charge the pro-
slavery sentiment and the system of slave
holding with all manner of evil Influences
They hold slavery to be the nursing mother of
impiety, irreligion and every kind of unchris.
tan principles and practices; whereas every
one of these charges is notoriously true of the
opposite sentiment of anti-slavery. In the
ranks Of the abolition agitators, and of the
clerical portion Of them in particular, every
species of fanatcism and delusion can be
found. German mysticism, rationalism, deism
and atheism pervade this class through and
through. 1t is just among this body of men
that these very denominations which the clergy
of Scotland denounce find their most cherished
abiding place.
There is more solid piety and religion and
more true Christianity in the saveholding COM
munities Of the South than can be found either
in New England or New York. Even the
slaves themselves, we will venture to say, pos
sess more genuine religion, and simpler and
more trusting faith, than the mass of the work
ing classes Of the North and East, because they
live under the discipline and control OF
members Of churches of the good old
orthodox religion, among whom the poison
of rationalism and German mysticism,
spiritualism and all the noxious delu-
sions of the age has never penetrated
Who that knows anything of the times in which
we live can doubt that skephcism in every
form-from the incipient doubtings of the i'm
mature mind, through all its phases, downwards
to avowed inidelity- permeates through the
clergy and the laity in those sections of the
country in which abolitionism is most rampant
We hear 1t every day in the lecture room, and
even in the pulpit, where the name of God is
often impiously invoked in behalf of senti.
ments in direct contravention to His teachings
1t is not to the pro slavery idea, then, that we
are to look for the progress of irreligion and
atheism, but in precisely the opposite direction;
and if these gentlemen in Glasgow would only
take the trouble to inform themselves upon the
subject, they might find that there is more
danger of the spread Of infdeIity, and the thou
sand vsgaries of the mind which lead to it, in
the anti slavery agitation Of the North than in
the practical workings of the slavery insti.
tutions in the South. But neither reason, nor
argument, nor evidence, we opine, would have
any effect upon the clergy Of Scotland, for they
are the most self conceited and arrogant class
of men on the face of the earth. They are the
veiitsble types Of the Pharisees of old, who
thanked God they we're not as other men. They
think that they have God Almighty in their
special keeping, and that lie cannot move
without their consent, and bat at their control
Upon such class of meu all argument and
reason within The reach Of human intelligence
would, Of course, be thrown awsy.