EXEMPTION CLAIM.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 224, 20 September 1940, Page 2

EXEMPTION CLAIM.

"WITNESSES ,, IN COURT NEW ZEALANDER INCLUDED. (By Air.) SYDXEY, Sept. 18. Among six members of Jehovah's Witnesses who were refused exemption from military service bv a. Burwood magistrate this week was William Lloyd Barry, 22, who said he was a Master of Science of Xew Zealand University and had "thrown aside a career marked out for him after he had pained the highest scholastic distinction to proclaim the Kingdom of God as the hope of the nations on earth." Tlie six Witnesses were refused exemption because in law Jehovah's Witnesses are not regarded ai ministers of religion. Barry said he had become a full-time minister in 1938-r-not by parsing examinations but by becoming a follower, as the Apostles had followed Christ. Hβ said he had visits the sick and dyin™, ami had conducted a funeral, but had not conducted a marriage. He agreed that the society was not a political or religious organisation. Hp said there were'7o member* at the headqu-rters at Strathfield. Sydney, who wre preparing literaI ttire. He himself- was assistant to the secretary of the Watch Tower Bible Soeiety* (Jehovah's Witnesses). He worked from 8 a.m. to 9.30 p.m. dailv, from Monday to Friday, and at weekends distributed literature and w-ent round on cars with amplifiers reproducing rect*rdings of scriptural talks. For this Jie received 15/ a week, out of which he had to pay travelling expenses and clothe himself. In a statement to the Court Barry said: "I make no pretence whatever of being a minister of religion in the popular sense and I would rather spend my life in a concentration camp than be recognised as a clergyman. The Bible makes plain the great distinction between religion, which is of the devil, and Christianity, which is of God. lam determined, come what may, to fight to the last ditch in defence of my right to continue in this fight for righteousness* sake. It is not myself that is on triml before this Court, but this Courv whicfc is on trial before Almighty God."