Our Contributors.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume V, Issue 457, 7 December 1880, Page 2

Our Contributors.

'BROUGHT INTO FOCUS. ;—♦_

(Contributed to the Akaroa Mail.)

" And Mr MeG egor recited ' Vital Spark.'" These remarkable words, towards the close of a very interesting account of a muffin struggle given in connection with the anniversary celebrations of the Congregational Church, Akaroa, have done more than all Dr Cummings' writings put together to convince me that the millennium is at hand. "Mac" at a dissenting teafight, and the lion lying down with the lamb, are synonymous expressions : the former being the more extraordinary phenomenon of the two in my opinion, since the lion (if all accounts are true) frequently does lie down with the lamb— inside of him. And then to what a determined pitch of fervor must " Mac" have been worked up to get on the spot, and with such a subject, too ! *' Vital Spark!" I'm told there wasn't a dry eye among the audience, who took it all in good faith ; while the fact is, he was really contrasting in his own mind all the time the impotency of the tea with the more potent and full-flavored charms of his favorite beverage. I regret now having written those few remarks anent the " new broom", business, for I see he is in it thoroughly ; but he might have chosen a more appropriate selection after having made such a dead set against the lamp-lighting business.

Those laymen who, while pursuing their ordinary avocations for six days in the week, blossom forth on Sundays as ministers of the Gospel, local preachers, lay readers, or what not, experience, I have been told, the greatest difficulty in keeping their Sabbath discourse free from the shibboleths of their work-a-day trade, whatever it may chance ro be. The shoemaker in such a case might, of course, without fear of the accusation of talking " shop," use the expression, the " cure of souls," or the " healing " power of such and such an attribute ; but, in the majority of instances, similies or trade terms adapted from the preacher's business relations are not considered good form ; still, to show how naturally the human mind slides into the commission of the error, I will relate a case in point which occurred .recently, the local preacher in this case, "being by occupation a farn'"t during the six working days, and, what . more, a shrewd, clever man of business, and a right good fellow withal. Farmer—well, I'll say Jones—Farmer Jones (Parson Jones on Sundays , who had been negotiating the sale of soni" cattle, had every reason to be more than satisfied with the result, and, as was usual on such occasions, had finished up the day by a convivial evening with some choice and cognate spirits. " The wee sma' hours ayent the w-»P " had passed and gone, when the farmer, rising, said : " I must jog along home." " What's the use of starting now?" asked a brother convivialist; "itwill.be daylight in an hour or so, and then we'll all go together." " Oh, but I have to get hirnips for my flock," replied Jones. " But surely," said the other in astonishment, " you don't feed your stock on turnips at this season of the year ?" "My friend." said Jones, oscillating gently, " its only toolevilal —I mean evident—you never readyerßible. ' Feed my flock,' you know. I musgoget fu "nips form'flock on Sunday ; don't ye see, you miserable lost sheep you ?" This case in point will serve to point a moral, though perhaps not adorn a tale.

The older we grow and the more experience we gain of ourselves and others, there is one glaring fact which becomes more and more firmly sheeted home in our understanding, though we wouldn't it for the world. It is this —How little we all are ; how despicably, meanly, hopelessly little-minded, that is. As prone to petty little jealousies, j petty, little, nasty, disagreeable thoughts and actions, as flies to sugar ! Well, I suppose it always will be so, but those of us who occupy public positions should,in their public capacity at any rate, abstain from any exhibition of the failing. Yet, I regret to say, there are many of these who do continually so abuse their position, and thus call down well-merifed rebuke and odium upon themselves, and those who placed them there. Among these must be included the members of a certain School Committee not a hundred miles from Akaroa, who, on the occasion of the schoolroom being recently required for an entertainment in aid of a sick family, did all in their power to frustrate its use for that purpose out of private jealousy and pique, or some such personal and ignoble motives. Men who will thus demean themselves and disgrace their position, should be relegated to the obscurity of private life, where they may indulge their " littleness " to the top of their bent with injury to none but themselves and their belongings. Verb. sat.

I cannot appropriately close this, my first'focussing since the Mayoral election, without sincere congratulations to the burgesses on their choice, and to the new Mayor on his accession to

office. Th 're is nothing fulsome in the remark tint tlmv have now got tie riujht man in the right phi.-p. That he will prove won by of fin honor they conferred upon him remains, of course, to be proved ; but that this will be so the most sceptical cannot doubt. There remains, however, yet another duty to be performed by the cit ; zens : namely, to provide His Worship with men able, good, and true to assist him in the work he will havp to perform. A Mayor with an incompetent Council at his back is as useless as a limb without bone, muscle, and sinew, or as a footless stocking without a leg. I have already pointed out the direction in which efforts should be made as regards one selection at least, and that may be taken as a criterion for the selection of others. In this way, and in this way alone, will the town be properly represented, and municipal business creditably and profitably transacted.

ASBESTOS.