"A TRAGIC THING"

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 227, 25 September 1929, Page 7

"A TRAGIC THING"

ANTI-CHRISTIANS.

SOME WEST COAST PEOPLE.

MR. GILBERT REPEATS CHARGE

MISREPRESENTED BY CRITICS

(By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.) HAMILTON, this day. Replying to-day to the criticism of his Sunday's sermon by Meesrs. H. E. Holland and J. O'Brien, the Rev. J. Gilbert said hie sermon was directed not at far-off people on the West Coast, but at the Christian and church-going people before him. "My contention was that the lack of vision in spiritual things was responsible, for' many of the deplorable social conditions-existing.to-day. I made the references complained of to illustrate part of the pressing problems in our own land to-day. Aβ one whose jot has always been cast among working men, my sympathies are naturally with them in' their long-continued fight for justice and fair conditions of working, but—the. truth must be faced. "Fine, HospitaDle People." "My outspoken critics, in their socalled refutation of, my statements, make an unwarrantable generalisation. The report was published without my knowledge, but the reporter certainly was at pains to make it unmietakeabiy clear that 1 spoke only of some parts and not the whole of the Coast. It certainly would be 'reckless and absurd,' and far worse, to hint, let alone declare, that up and down the West Coast, among some of the finest and most hospitable people I have ever met, there pertained everywhere conditions such as those of which I spoke. Further, I gratefully acknowledge that warm-hearted hospitality is constantly forthcoming from among the very people whose lack of spiritual vision I (rightly I believe) deplored. "I Spoke of One Funeral." "But, having said that, I have nothing to qualify or withdraw, except that I spoke not of funerals, but of one funeral, where exactly what I related took place. Much that these gentlemen say re Sunday pictures is quite irrelevant, but one wonders if they are really to be taken seriously when they assume an air of indignant horror at what I said re the sale.in some places, of liquor ,on Sundays. "I wouldassure them that my imagination has not pla3-ed havoc with my veracity, but the truth has opened' my eyes, and the truth, as I found'it, is this: That in some parts of the West Coast there have arisen communities that, far from being merely apathetic to Christianity, are actively anti-Christian, and I hold it to be a tragic thing, both for those communities and for our country, that such is the case. "My Sympathies With Them." "But let me stress again, lest for the second time my critics miss the point/ my sympathies are strongly with thoee communities in many of- their eocial ideals, although Miot always with their methods of obtaining them,, because I believe I see in their conditions, materially and spiritually, the effect not only of a lack of spiritual vision, but also of oppression and injustice, in regard to some of which at least the Christian Church is not without blame."