Some Sabbatical fanatics ' have attempted to stop the Sunday
-evening lectures in St. Martin's Hall, by putting in force .an un- !repealed statute, 21st- George III., cap. 49, imposing a penalty of 2001. ,a night on persons who Jet rooms for public enter- tainments to which entrance is secured by payment of money on Sundays. -The committee . formed for these Sunday -evenings determined to try the applicability of . the Act to their case, and A writ is to be duly served on the soil-
to the committee, Messrs. Sham And Roscoe, by Messrs. Bose, Baxter, and Norton, and the .case will probably be tried in -Easter term, unless this silly Act ia first repealed. The lecturers itave-all been able, all attended by _very, large bodies of respect- able people, and though the doctrine of -Mr. Lltutley's lecture was oertainly atheistic, that: has no bearing on the legal .aspect of the matter, though it no doubt provoked the threat which has stopped the -lectures. Of comae the right to teach of • God and Christ cannot be maintAined -without. conceding the right-to-leach any sincere convictions, however foolish and erroneous. These 'silly sabbatarians do not see that they are doing pure injury to the 'faith which seems to need .the alliance of such. A, statute. to put -down falsehood. Mratturlefs painful but -earnest leoture..might -do much to bring _home to men's, hearts the- real bags on which their-faith rests. If it threw others jute deeper doubt, it was at least a kind of doubt that every man ought resolutely; to face. It is much for Christians to know that the characteriatic struggle -of- the faith of- our day is not with Deism, but absolute and honest Atheism.
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