17 NOVEMBER 1849, Page 14

THE CHURCH AND THE VICE OF SCOTLAND. LAUDABLE 18 the

conscientious industry of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland; curiously perverse and incomplete the application of it, as expounded in a volume which has been sent to us from Edinburgh—the Report of their Corn inittee for the Suppression of Intemperance, with notes of returns made by four _hundred and seventy-eight Kirk-Sessions. The mere facts are striking enough. From this report it would appear that drunkenness is a vice so deeply enrooted in the habits and likings of the people, that the advance of intelligence makes very little progress in correcting it ; and the occasions of it are strange,—private meetings for business, complimentary "tastings " in buying groceries, [sold often at the same shop with spirits,] market meetings, marriages, baptisms and even funerals. In

fact, if -Scorclimen meet they drink. baptisms, allowance, however, must be made for the colour of the mind in the minister who composes the Kirk-Session report: for when be says, as it - does happen in a few instances, that he sees no drunkenness, he may take a very broad view of the bounds of sobriety ; whereas he who speaks in excessive terms of the sin may be an -exaggerating ascetic. With every allowance, the fact remains, of a vice per- vading all classes and all quarters.

In the analysis of causes and the deduction of remedies, the reverend body of gentlemen is cramped by its false position. The necessity which is incumbent upon all Scotch ministers, of presuming the truth to exist only in one form, positively incapa- citates them for dealing effectually with this monster vice. The causes stated are too many and various to be classified,—the oc- casions already mentioned, the social usages of the whole people, payments on Saturday night, the number of public-houses, the in- flux of Irish, [a race much less addicted to intoxication,] -the rival teachings of a divided ministry, dancing parties, pleasure parties, the Seression of l843, want -of "plain wholesome beer," "ungod- liness," &e. The Committee of the Assembly does not expressly dispute, but does not accept all these causes-; limiting its-own view to the "outward snares" of temptation in national-customs, in the practice of drinking at meetings, and to the "inner -Springs" of intemperance—original sin uncorrected by religious discipline. The remedies proposed are remarkable for being at once mostly uf a speculative and of a topical kind,-.–that is, based. on expecta- tion rather than appearances; and directed to the mere instru- - limns and occasiuns of intoxication, or to: special exhortation, rather than to an altered spirit iI Members and people. The re. port advises diminution of public-houses, abolition of drinking usages by the influence of KirkaSessionag" unceasing and impi. tient remonstrance" by the religious ,ininisters against sale of whisky on the Lord's Day, alteration of, paymlayto, Monday; aholition of the evils attending feeing-markets and of the" bonne" system. The Kirk-Session reports suggest many other reinediss,--. stringent and compulsory church discipline, example of Teetotal. ism by all ministers and elders, [not repeated in the report of the Committee,] sale of spirits through excisemen, encouragement of plain wholesome beer, diversion of the propensity to excitement into proper channels, [apparently of the religious kind,] "the gospel," suppression of dancing, &c. All agree that lay or seat- tar Teetotalism has failed.

In short, all the ministers of parishes' and the metropolitan body also, seem to feel bound to overlook the broad -facts—bound not to find the truth set forth in those facts, bet to seek it beyond; and having passed it, of course they go all lengths-in all directions, in wandering mazes lost. Members of the Scottish Church would say—and justly, according to their conviction—that of all countries in the world Scotland is best provided with an ecclesiastical ma- chinery for the ministration of the gospel, and is in fact the most moral country in the world. We need raise no question of theo- logical truth here; we are speaking only of social discipline, and the applicatitm of religious influence. Now one broad fact glares you in the face, which these most excellent persons must not see —that, speaking broadly, drunkenness is a Protestant rather than a Catholic vice. They are forced to confound causes and effects, innocent matters and sin: dancing and music are" abominations"; public-houses are the cause rather than the consequences of the national propensity, although that is so rooted that -the General Assembly does not venture to call even on its own ministers for an example—of course, for fear the call should be disobeyed. The Committee goes so far as to say, with the Italic emphasis which we copy, that "occasional intemperance" is at least as great if not "a greater evil" than "habitual intoxication"! They assume the one broad cause to be " ungodliness," according to the Scottish interpretation of that terrm—by which it is made to in- clude many things that do not partake of impiety : they pre- sume "the gospel" as administered by themselves to -be the sole remedy, in the teeth of the fact that the country where they them- selves administer the gospel is superemineut among nations for its drunkenness. One ingenuous minister reports of his district, that "a very great change has taken place in the parish and county [not named] as to intemperance in the present generation; to be accounted for only from drinking having become -unfashion- able, more than from a regard to God's law and man's duty." These gentlemen, called upon to discipline human society, refuse to consider human nature as it is ; they will not recognize what does influence human nature, but only what they think ought to do so; and in seeking- for remedies, bind themselves to exclude all that do not belong to that system of which they report the signal fail- ure, and which does result in exhibiting the extremes of a con- scientious asceticism in the few and of riotous drunkenness in the many. Many complain that their parishioners stop away from at- tendance at church. That is not so in Roman Catholic countries, where the people are sober, but do not attain to the gospel itself as it is expounded in Scotland. Another incident of the Scottish system of discipline, then is absence from church, forgetfulness of religion and of God. is it that the ministers of religion refuse to go along with their flock in their pleasures and their pains, their privations and their passions? that in professing to carry the gospel among the people, they frighten away their hearers by the terrors of their intolerant rigour; thus withholding from them the blessed rule and solace of religion, and practically alienating them from God?