AWFUL DOINGS IN SCOTLAND.
EXTRACTS from Scotch journals, in our news department, commu- nicated to our readers last week the appalling information, that "Scotland is at this momert r.n object of intense interest both in Heaven and in Hell"! :5 "the battle-field in which the Powers of Light and Da, .ess are engaged in a desperate con- flict " ! Such intelligence nett not been received from the North since, under the auspices of the sapient King JAMIE, an attempt
made to stem the growth of witchcraft by increasing the staff of " prickers " (the officials who detected the seal set by the Evil One upon those who had sold their souls to him) in every town and village. It appeared that the scattered bands of the "powers of the air," carrying on a guerilla warfare over the whole earth, had been called in for the purpose of concentrating the Satanic force upon Scotland. The good people of the South, relieved for a time by this step from the assaults of the tempters, had the more leisure to watch the progress of the Northern struggle.
The first news from the theatre of war was alarming—the Powers of Darkness had triumphed ! It was some relief, however, to learn that their opponents were not disheartened. The minority of the shareholders in the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway Company met on the very evening of their defeat, in Cotton's Wellington Hotel, and resolved "that the Committees at Edinburgh and Glasgow do declare their meetings permanent." It was high time ; for never since Dr. MARTIN LUTHER threw his inkstand at Satan's head had that great author of mischief stood so clearly revealed to view. Do not the fire and smoke of the locomotive engines, and the unearthly scream or whistle with which they give notice of their approach, betray their parentage ? It is clear from the vote of the proprietors of the Glasgow and Edinburgh Railway, that "the dread Fire-King" does not lend them his services for nothing : he repays himself by taking them bound to promote Sabbath- desecration. Dr. SYMINGTON seems, from a speech he delivered at a meeting of the minority on the evening of the 25th of last month, to see the matter in its true light—" It was said that the agitation against the Railway was a Nonintrusion measure : the Nonintrusionists need not be ashamed of being the advocates of Sabbath-observance ; but, though he denied it was a party mea- sure, he would like to see the great seal applied to a deed to pre- vent engines and railway-trains, with their din and their smoke and their congregations of desecrators, from being intruded into any of the parishes of Scotland contrary to the will of the people." The Doctor is right. Whoever handles pitch will be defiled: into whatever parish these unholy engines are allowed to penetrate, they will carry irreligion along with them. Keep them out ! Let us, however, see what the proprietors of this railway are going to do, in order that we may more justly estimate the measure of their iniquity, as masters obliging their servants to work on the Sabbath : for those who may avail themselves of the railway- accommodation they are not answerable. "You will have," said Mr. HAMILTON at the meeting which has occasioned all this outcry, "about ten or twelve engineers and as many stokers : of these, two will be on duty each Sunday ; that is, their turn will come round once in five or six weeks ; in other words, they will be employed about ten Sundays every year, and have about forty Sundays at their own disposal. Again, they need not be taken from their families even on those ten Sundays. By the regulation of the Manchester and Liverpool line, when the trains meet midway, the Company's servants meet and change trains, and each returns home. This rule might be adopted here ; so that the whole length
of time they would be separated from their families would be about three hours morning and evening for ten Sundays in the year." The sacrifice is not so very great after all : what is the object proposed to be obtained by it? Not lucre : for two trains with a limited number of coaches despatched from each end of the railway in one day will scarcely pay expenses. The object is to afford an accommodation to the public which it has a right to demand. When individuals, or a company, establish a regular system of con- veyance for passengers, their calculation is that there are a suffi- cient number of individuals obliged to travel, and yet obliged to economize, to insure to them a constant succession of customers. They profess to extend to the less wealthy classes of the commu- nity that power of travelling with expedition, which otherwise would be exclusively confined to the rich. They are well paid by the public, and become bound in equity to supply it with all neces- sary accommodation in the way of travelling. Now, viewing the question only in this point of view—assuming, for the sake of argument, that Sunday-travelling really is the deadly sin some account it to be—it must be taken into account that there are cases when people must travel on Sunday. If these traffickers in travelling are to keep their promise to the public, there must be provision made for the accommodation of those who are forced by contingen- cies to travel on Sunday. This can only be done where, as in the case of Edinburgh and Glasgow, two communities, numbering re- spectively nearly 200,000 inhabitants, rely upon these passenger- carriers for accommodation, by a regular deapatch of conveyance on Sundays as on other days. No one can say when they may be wanted ; and stopping them for a whole day may be productive of painful consequences. The most rigid will not deny that any per- son receiving late on Saturday night the intelligence that a parent was dying, would be warranted to travel to see him on Sunday ; or that a medical man summoned to a consultation might travel on the Sabbath without sin ; and many parallel cases might be ima- gined. Regular public conveyances are the only means by which the middle and poorer classes can avail themselves of these exemp- tions; and in such numerous communities they are of sufficiently frequent occurrence to render it necessary that they should be ob- tainable on Sundays as on other days. The question is not whe- ther speculators in the trade of public conveyance should be al- lowed to convey passengers on Sunday, but whether under any pretext they should be excused from conveying them on that day. Mr. Hararrirox's statement, quoted above, shows with how slight a sacrifice of Sabbath leisure this accommodation may be kept open for the whole public where there is a railway. The railway-owners are bound to find all corners the means of travelling : whether the travellers do right or wrong in travelling, is their own concern, with which no human being has a right to interfere. If that class did not travel by railway, it would desecrate the Sabbath in some other and perhaps grosser manner. Above all others, railway-proprietors are bound to provide this accommodation, for they destroy even posting on the lines along which they furnish the means of travel- Hog: you must go by them or not at all.
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