OUR SYDNEY LETTER.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 300, 18 May 1889, Page 3

OUR SYDNEY LETTER.

. [FBOM OVB OWN CORRESPONDENT.] F- Politics seem temporarily to have lost their interest, at least for the politician. The onrse of the debates in the House is flat, stale, and unprofitable, and the measures for which the country is waiting seem to make little or no progress. But the truth is that party politicians are not at all in touch with the anxieties or requirements of the country. How to gain power for their party and keep it when it is gained, how to humiliate an opponent or whitewash a friend, these are the problems that engage their attention and enlist their sympathies. When nothing of thia kind is on the tapis, they are content to hibernate, as it were, to live a kind of dormouse existence, neither asleep nor awake, merely going through certain routine procedure in a perfunctory kind of way, which aims at doing nothing in particular, and bits the mark with amazing accuracy. This is about the position at the present time. The Government are in office, it is trne, but they are too weak to do anything. Their retention of powerdepends on their not offending anybody, and as, if they attempt to do anything they are certain to offend somebody, they may be relied upon to remain as mnm as possible. As far as ’he Opposition are concerned, they are in as bad a case as the Government. If they could get possession of the Treasury benches they could not govern. If they were to appeal to the country they have no reasonable ground for hoping that Protectionist feeling has increased sufficiently to give them a working majority. Hence they, too, are apathetic. When the sinews of party zeal are thus relaxed, one might suppose it an excellent opportunity for real public spirit to manifest itself. The whole of the great interior is languishing for the want of a just and equitable Land Bill. At present, Crown tenants have little or no opportunity of improving their holdings, for in a very short time their improvements will be confiscated. The concession of what is no more than strictly equitable would do more to change the face of the Jluntry into confidence, activity, and energy anything else that could be conceived, the works that would be executed would far to mitigate the ravages of the next drought. Besides giving a temporary impetus to industry, they would permanently add to the prosperity and wealth of the country. Nearly everybody can see this, but, unfortunately, among the exceptions are the only men who can carry it into effect—the legislators of Macquarie Street. These gentlemen, in the intervals of party conflict, amuse themselves In " talking to Buncombe,” airing their own little'fads, trotting around the departments in the interests of their wealthy and influential constituents, in doing anything and everything, in short, but that which they were sleeted to do, and this they will continue to do just as long as, and no longer, than the electors will put up with it. Let us hope the period will be a brief one, and let each man who has the welfare of the country at heart, do all in his power to shorten it. But if politics are temporarily fading from notice, religion is coming very much to the fere. A Church Congress is being held in Sydney at the present time, and has collected a large number of ecclesiastical dignitaries. The amount of instruction that these gentlemen are mutually to impart and receive may be conjectured from the fact that the notice paper already numbers fortyfive papers, which are to be read. There can be no doubt that the Congress numbers amongst its members some of the beat and most useful men in the community. But it is easy to gather that there is something wanting. They can meet and read papers to one another with a great deal of pleasure, and, let us hope, with a great deal of profit as well. But they have failed to enlist the active sympathies of the great mass of the people, the poor and humble toilers, to whom a religion that speaks of a prosperity not of this world, of springs of happiness that may be tasted by the lowest - as well as by the highest, ought to be specially dear.

On Monday night, a meeting was held for the special benefit and behoof of “ working men.” But working men, in the ordinary acceptation of the phrase, were conspicuous by their absence. The speakers numbered judges, Bishops, Cabinet Ministers, and eminent politicians amongst them, and they endeavored to solace themselves for the absence of their invited audience by the reflection that they, too, are “ working men.” But the real “ horny handed son of toil ” for whose especial benefit the meeting was convened, wasn't there at all, and some of the speakers faced the fact, and endeavored to account for it in their own way. I doubt whether they got to the root of the difficulty or whether they made any appreciable headway in removing it. As a matter of fact although the “ working man ” can appreciate kindness, courage, and fidelity to duly, it seems to be part of hit religion to cultivate a profound distrust of ” the clergy.” Somehow or other the word “ religion ” has come to be identified in his mind with sleekness and broadcloth with a superciliousness that despises the inevitable soil and stain of his daily calling, and with a pride and fastidiousness that on one hand, barely tolerates the existence of the poor, whilst on the other it seeks, for its own ends, to patronise them and drag them at its chariot wheels. There are certain disagreeable things which the law compels them to do and which they fulfil more or less grudgingly. . In former times an outward obedience to religious observances was one of them. But it is so no longer, and until the great masses of the people can see something in religion and the lives of its professors to attract them, so that they shall follow it freely and of their own accord, they will remain outside the pale of the visible Chqrch. But not necessarily outside the pale of the yeal Church. It is conceded on all hands that the religious spirit was never more active pr more powerful than it is at present. If religions bodies do not prosper it is because they fail to connect themselves with it, because they require their votaries tq do some violence to their affectional or intellectual nature, The Divine Humanity, whom every true man and woman worship in their heart Of hearts, never had more faithful homage than in this 19th century. Unfortunately, perhaps, fidelity to truth and goodness is quite as likely to keep men out of the churches as to load them to them. For my own part, I am interested in both gldes of the question—that which it presents to the so-called wording, as well as that which jt presents to the sincere Christian. Both, if they are worthy of the name, are anxious for the victory of goodness and truth which would convert the world itself into a heaven below. But before the victory can be achieved those great principles must permeate every necessary and legitimate avocation, and the illegitimate ones must cease to exist. The great error of the churches, qelfiom expressed in words, but pearly always implied, is that of regarding its pwn ecclesiastical doings, Its worship, its congresses or what not, as the one thing needful, and oalmly ignoring the struggles against falsehood and injustice, against error and lust, which an being made by the teeming millions outside. These are the real etirrings of spiritual life. The other may be, or often is, I miserable simulation and affection of a piety Which has no existence. And those who are Outside the churches equally err by ignoring the real Christian spirit of the true men and women witbin those bodies. They judge the flock by the black sheep within it, They know the alneerity of their own hearts, their desire to know and to do the truth, and the power of the influences which oppose. But they can seldom see any counterpart to their own struggles in the snug self-satisfaction of those who regard religious pbsaryan'ceo as q sort 6| convenient adjunct to their respectability. Truly, the world was never more religious than it la to-day. But the visible Church was never less so, never more impotent to reach - and to stir the aspirations and the affections of the great mass of humanity. Good will Ultimately ensue. The reality of the real will assert itself. The false pretence of the superficial and specious will become manifest. But ibe “ waiting time ’’ win be a long one and a hard one. “ plpar thinking and right living ” is the golden olup that will lead through the labrynth. Whether the great problem ol life be Viewed from a sacred or secular ptandpoint, the path of practical duty and the principles which dictate it ate nearly the same for all. Moral and spiritual laws are as inexorable in their sphere as the physical laws which science is rendering familiar. But in these h gher realms, the laws themselves become not mire statements of sequences, but energising find Ufe-givlng influences, I find I han been IflWJytdiato lomethiaglikea larmon, but 1