The Ashburton Guardian. Magna Est Veritas et Prevaledit TUESDAY, JUNE 10, 1884. An Ecclesiastical Squabble.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1276, 10 June 1884, Page 2

The Ashburton Guardian. Magna Est Veritas et Prevaledit TUESDAY, JUNE 10, 1884. An Ecclesiastical Squabble.

There is a' story told by Boccacio of a Jew, who, proposing to become a Christian, went to Rome, and was , confirmed in his half-formed intent by witnessing the iniquities practised 1 there. The argument used by the Hebrew was that a religion whose spiritual heads did everything to over- ■ throw it must be divinely supported, as ; otherwise it could not maintain the > position in the world which it did. Five centuries have passed away since the great Italian fabulist lived and 1 wrote, but now and then an event occurs ■ which seems to show that time has robbed the satire of none of its force. Not only does one denomination of the ! Christian religion quarrel with another, | but members of the same flock have ’ also their strong points of difference, although were are glad to say these are • generally ventilated in private. There are, however, exceptions to this rule, and a case in point is the correspondence that recently took place between the Anglican Bishop of Dunedin, Dr Nevill, and the Rev. R. L. Stanford, and which has found its way into the public Press of the colony. The story of this squabble, as disclosed in the letters, is easily told. Mr Stanford, who until recently has kept a school near Dunedin, had determined to change his profession, and try his fortune as a barrister. Accordingly he wrote to his Bishop informing him of this fact and requesting to be allowed to resign his license to officiate in the diocese. , To the lay mind the question certainly does not appear to present any difficulty, but Dr Nevill evidently looked at it from another point of view. He tells his correspondent that for a parson to become a lawyer is a crime that merits “ public degradation from the ranks of the clergy,” a sentence which certainly sounds very severe, though we confess to not understanding how the punishment is carried out. Mr Stanford is, however, not the man to be frightened by the terrible ecclesiastical threat, and in his rejoinder he not only defends his own action, but he retaliates by accusing the Bishop of worshipping at the shrine of Mammon. “ As a clergyman in your diocese, (he writes) I have known, from time to time, of my Bishop being a land speculator, mixed up in the conduct of pottery works, bargaining over an annuity. To your conduct of these numerous speculative enterprises, I have heard many bad epithets applied, and have said nothing; feeling that it was your concern and not mine. You appear to have thought it not inconsistent with the office of a bishop, an overseer of the Church of Christ, to mix yourself up in no small degree with such purely worldly and secular affairs. . I, on the contrary, before entering on the honorable profession of the law, thought it in better taste to resign my profession as a clergyman. There is, therefore, this contrast between our actions : You remain a Bishop' while spending no inconsiderable portion of your time on these secular affairs ; I resign my clerical calling before devoting my attention to the profession of a barrister or solicitor.” It will perhaps not be regarded as very serious that a Bishop should endeavor to increase his wealth by legitimate speculation, but most people will doubt the wisdom of a man living in a glass house spending his ; time in throwing stones at his neigh- , bor’s tenement. Mr Stanford’s posi- : tion seems to us to be at least as logical I as that of Dr Nevill, and indeed the J latter in his reply does not attempt to , excuse himself, but bases his objection | to the change of profession on the plea t that “ once a clergyman always a clergy- ’ man.” He says :—“ Retirement from t the active exercise of his priestly func- , tions on the part of the individual is no i adequate defence; his clerical charac- ' ter remains, and ought under such cir- t cumstances to be removed by ihe c same authority whence it proceeded, i

in so far as it can be removed, the church being no longer responsible for the actions of the man.” This, we may presume, is an “ official utterance ” not to be gainsaid, but the logic of it is that so long as a man remains in the church he can dabble in trade or speculate in land as much as he likes, but if he wishes to enter an honorable profession he must suffer the penalty of public degradation. We all known that ’the choleric word of the captain becomes rank blasplany in the private, and the Bishop and Mr Stanford appear to occupy the same relative positions in this instance. Not being well up in the subtelties of ecclesiasticism, we will not venture to give an opinion as to whether Dr Nevill was technically right in treating the request in the manner he has done, but judged by the light of ordinary common sense it is evident that he has got the worst of it, and is probably by this time sorry that he spoke. At any rate, the threat of degradation has had little effect upon Mr Stanford, as he has already entered into business in Dunedin, and the published correspondence has no doubt served his purpose as a “ bold advertisement.” The whole affair is for many reasons to be deplored, and it is to be hoped that the Bishop of Dunedin will not bring the Church of which he is an officer

into contempt by taking further action in a matter which should never have been made public He probably acted conscientiously, but the wisdom of making a mountain of such a very trumpery molehill is more than doubtful.