MINISTERS AND ELDERS AT LUNCH.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1600, 18 November 1912, Page 2

MINISTERS AND ELDERS AT LUNCH.

' . ' (By A.A.8.) Tho ministers and office-bearers of St. John's Presbyterian Church invited the Assembly to lunch after a recent morning's sederunt, in tho hall adjoining the church. Many ladies were amongst the company, who sat down at the table,' and ' the icene was a- bright and animated one. ■ A bevy of ladie3, too, "young and fresh ; and sweet as flowers in early spring," .as : a miniver described them to his spouse, * waited upon' the guests, and by kind'at- ' tentiveness and graceful service, set all at 1 their ease. The spouse to whom this comparison was addressed madb a very pretentious grimace of disapproval, then laughed and looked at the girls, while a soft and dreamy look came into her eyes. Was she thinking of her own youth, or 1 of the daughter whom she had left in ; charge of the manse far south in Otago? Tho Moderator is the specially-honoured . guest of the occasion, and occupies a posii tion at the table on tho platform with 1 the minister : of St. John's as host, and with other officials of the Assembly and several ladies in attendance time passes , most pleasantly. There are conversations ins to the business before the house. A debate here and thero is carried on, from the point at which it had been adjourned in the Assembly. There are delightful ■ reminiscences between friends who have not met for years.. The Moderator reminds the assembled company that it is not the first time his host and lie had dined together. . When fellow-students at the same Divinity Hall in Scotland they had sung as grace together— "The lions young may hungry be, ■ And they may lack their food." Little did they realise then, through a wanton.lack of faith in the truth of the two. lines which complete.tho .oouplot, how abundanUy „t,hat kunger'.was' to-be : satisfied,; how''amply that lack was to be supplied;.and that without the breaking ot . their teeth, in. a fair land 'neath the Southern pross, and upon such happy occasion. The 'Moderator, in» delivering his happy' little speech, was not otherwise than he is ever in the Assemblylust himself. Of oourse there was the inevitable story. What would a minister's lunch be without a yarn? Many good stories were told, but this was the best I heard: Two ministers were deploring the depravity of the times, especially as manifest in the desire for short sermons. "Ah. friend, moaned the one, times have changed. I can remember when I used to preach a sermon' of reasonable length,' even for an .hour!" "An hour!" ejaculated the other with scorn, "I have preached for two hours."/ "You must have been about exhausted by tho end!" was his friend's rejoinder. "No!" was the response of the other. Then, as if he felt some qualification was necessary—betraying at once his nationality by his caution and idiom—he added, "But man, it would have done your heart good to fee how exhausted the people were!" Into the bright' sunshine the company came streaming from the hall after luncli, chatting and joking in little groups on the pavement, or foregathering in the open space besido the church, awaiting the beginning of another sederunt. : "Where have they all come fromf" asked a youth of the city, as I turned from their company into Willis Street. "From Dan even unto Beersheba!" I said. "And where's that?" he again asked; "In the Bible!" I again said.