MR. A. R. ATKINSON AND HIS CLERICAL CRITICS.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1852, 11 September 1913, Page 5

MR. A. R. ATKINSON AND HIS CLERICAL CRITICS.

Sir, —On Sunday, August 17, a concerted attack was made upon me from several pulpits in Wellington under tho direction of Canon Garland, the organising secretary of the Bible-in-Schools League. r lhe ollence alleged against mo was tho uso of grossly offensive language about the supporters of tho league, and I lost no timo in explaining that the charge was based unon a complete misrepresentation of my words and thoughts. Bishop Sprott at once j accepted my repudiation without demur, blaming me, however, at the same time, for not having corrected the erroneous report before tho attack was delivered. My answer was to plead i guilty of negligence in not having seen the mistake until my attention was called to it bv the pulpit denunciations, and I oxplained that had I noticed it before I should not havo allowed so offensive a statement to remain uncorrected for a singlo day. The rejoinder of- my critics was remarkable. My denial and explanation had been published on August 18 and 19. *My critics waited until the 28th and then published a letter in which tlioy not only refused to accept my repudiation of tho offensive words, but triumphantly argued that I really had seen tho disputed words before their attack was made, and .that by my silence had "endorsed both tho accuracy and also the offensivenoss of the words." In view of my previous denial, this argument amounted, of course, to tho lio direct. In reply, I gave my word of honour that what I had said was true, and offered to submit to any tribunal of my fellow-citizens which my accusers might select the question whether my honour was strong enough to stand the strain. Now that another interval of ten days has gone by without either an acceptance of this challenge or an apology for the insult or tho discovery that I havo been guilty of somo other breach of tho Decalogue, I presume that I am entitled to regard the case for the prosecution as closed. With an overpowering desire to blacken my character, and an apparently boundless capacity for thinking what is necessary for the purposo, they are not prepared to carry the process of calumny any further, while a mistaken conception as to what is duo to their own reputation .makes them unwilling either to withdraw and apologise or to submit tho matter to an independent tribunal. I have nlreadv stated that I decline to waste indignation over a matter which is too paltry, too absurd, and too contomptiblo to deserve such honourable treatment. A dozen charges might havo been plausibly brought against my controversial methods, hut the accusation of deliberate mendacity is about tho very last thing that I should be afraid of my fellow-citizens believing. It is laid down by Arbuthnot, in his hints on "The Art of Political Lying"—a work with which, as ministers of religion, it would bo unreasonable to expcct my critics to display an intimate acquaintance—that falsehoods of tho detractory or defamatory kind "should not bo quite opposite to tho qualities tho persons aro supposed to have." The violation of this fundamental principle by my critics has saved mo from any anxiety so far as my own city is concerned. The dissemination of the slander in other places has had a moro serious aspect, but hero it has been compensated by a more generous treatmont than lias been forthcoming at headquarters. The Press Association has accepted my denial of tho words attributed to me, and expressed regret at having circulated them. Tho "Outlook," tho offi.cial organ of the Presbyterian Church, has done tho samo. In my native town, where pious virulence appears to have reached its highest notes in tho denunciation of my apocryphal, statement as "slanderous and unholy," the "Taranaki Daily Nows," on hearing of my denial, ivifchotifc a- direct word from; me, oxpresscd it 3 regret at having published tho attack. In those churches of, Nov/ Plymouth whore I was denounced I havo not heard that any similar reparation has been ipado. Is it too much to ask that tho congregations which were induced to stand by way of protest against my "slanderous and unholv" languago, should now put their heads under tho seats while tho minister, in white penitential sheet, mounts tho pulpit and explains that the slander and tho unholiness wero his, and not mine? From Invorcargill I hear that from at least ono pulpit regret has been expressed for the attack which had proviously been mado upon me from the samo place. It is highly gratifying to find that not all tho pulpits which lent themselves to the campaign of calumny have brazened the business out on the lines approved at headquarters. That tho action of tho secretary of the Bible-in-Schools League has done me no harm in tho place whero I am best known, but has, on the contrary, seriously damaged his own reputation and his own propaganda is fortunately beyond doubt. An organisation which stands by while its princioai officer conducts himself in this fashion cannot possibly escape the moral responsibility for tactics which it has abstained from disavowing. Tho injustice, the intoleranqe, tho vindictiveness, the entire dis-, regard of the ordinary courtesies and decencies of controversy with which I have been treated have mndo a profound impression upon the public mind and tho moral is plain. If an agitation of which the mainsDrine is undoubtedly a genuine desire for the propagation of Christianity has nevertheless produced at this early stago such eminently nilChristian fruits, can we afford to give it control of our schools, or to encourage its promoters in any other visions of temporal power?—l am, etc., A. R-ATKINSON. September 9.