THE RECTOR’S REPLY.

Evening Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2206, 2 June 1870, Page 2

THE RECTOR’S REPLY.

To the Editor of the Evening Star, Sib, — I am very much surprised at the tone of Mr Hawthorne’s reply to your leader of the 27th. Mr H. may he, and I have no doubt is, a very erudite and scholarly gentleman, but scholarly qualifications and acquirements can afford surely to calmly reply to any opponent, whoever ho may be, and extreme touchiness and a standing on your dignity is on any occasion a rather suspicious circumstance. And in the present case, I believe this to be verified. For Mr H. though so profound a logician has failed to come at his interpretation of the Saviour’s parable by the easiest and most direct way. If Mr H. objects to the editor of the Star being an infallible authority, and puts it as a question very difficult of solution, ‘f Who is to decide ?” He will admit that the uniformly admitted safest and best interpreter of Scripture is Scripture itself : and that one very direct auxiliary means of arriving at the meaning of any passage of Holy Writ, is by attending to its immediate connexion. And I would ask, therefore, is there any thing in the occasion or circumstance giving rise to this parable, that would lead to the conclusion of its having a “ human groundwork ’’ at all, or whether it has, as Mr H. asserts it to have, a secular as well as a spiritual side ? If Mr H. would turn to the preceding clnqjfccr in Matthew, ho would find that the disciples had been “exceedingly amazed” at the saying of our Lord respecting the impossibility of a rich man entering the kingdom of God ; and that Jesus replies to Peter, who puts the question, “Which shall we have therefore ? ” and makes this statement, “ But many that are first shall be last, and the last shall be first—for ” (he continues in illustration) “ the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder,” and so on with the parable, which is clearly intended to show that the kingdom of God is purely of grace not of debt, and that with his sovereign intentions we have nothing to do—they who have been called first, and they wbo have labored longest, having no more claim than they who were called last. Surety it is by hard straining that a reference can be wrung out of this to a co-opera-tive grocer's store. There is too much now-a-days of this semiSocinian teaching. If men would take the Bible with its one great object, the salvation of sinners by the blood of Christ, as they take other books with a spec’al object, and regard that special object specially, there would be a vastly wider spreading of the blessing which it proposes, an 1 less of that philosophising unproductiveness which tickles the fancy and the head at the expense of the heart. I am, &c., J. B. June 1, 1870. To the Editor of the Evening Star. Sir,—When the celebrated London hoot artist—Hofibs, Hobby, or Hoppy, I forget which—was honored -with a visit from a Jialf-pay swell, whose little account had been

standing for the eighteen months previous on the left column of Hobby’s ledger, said swell bouncing and swearing that on account of the confounded misfit of his last boots he should certainly withdraw his custom from him, Hobby very gravely informed his young apprentice Nell to go at once and clap on the shuts; he believed he was a ruined man, and that his occupation was gone. Now we do not wish to be so cruel as that, but we do mean to give a gentle hint to our English friends to put their houses in order with regard to sending out their liquors to Otago, New Zealand, at any rate, as their days are numbered. A few days ago we tasted a sample of wine, or still champagne, made by a gentleman in Dunedin from the gooseberry alone, quite equal if not superior to any so-called champagne sent out here, and to make the sparkling only requires a little more manipulation, to be sold at half the price of that sent from the old country. It is a well-known fact to many that most of that sent out here is made principally fivm the gooseberry and rhubarb, and as both articles are grown here to greater perfection than at home, and to any extent, the imported article must be shut out from our imports presently. The gentleman alluded to will give any information with regard to the process of manufacture : so much then of advice to our English friends with regard to a wine not made from the grape, but should be. A word of advice to our French friends may not be out of place with regard to their pale brandies, so largely sent out to the Colonies of late years It is well known to the Scotch excise, and must be to the French, tbit their P. B. is made almost from a silent spirit largely distilled in Scotland from raw grain of all sorts, sent to France, tinctured and flavored from wine lees by a particular process, and shipped off as pure pale or brown brandy, as the case may be. Non' as grain of all sorts can be grown here to an unlimited extent, with our new distilleries in operation, and our wine lees from our sister Colony, Adelaide, our P. B. drinkers will have a better article at half the cost, and bo as wise as ever whether they are drinking a spirit which should be made entirely from the grape or made from ti e raw grain mentioned, and the import of that specious stuff called pale brandy will bo only matter of history. With regard to our Scotch friends and their real “ mountain dew,” wo tell them point blank that we require no more of that article. Our new distillery in operation in Dunedin is now sending out an article quite equal both in the shape of whiskey and gin, and with age will be superior to any sent out from the old world, and— the grand consideration to dram drinkers—it is only about half the price, or should he, as the duty is only the half of the imported. So with regard to whiskey, old tom, Hollands, and the English gin so largely made in London, must all shortly cease as imports to the Colonies in our vicinity at any rate, we will then have a more wholesome kind of beverage and at a much lower rate ; with our Adelaide wines, shortly duty free, and our own pure spirits, we may then drink more, keep the money in the country, and neither get half so mad or fou ; in fact, if our premier’s account in his tee-total lecture lately is correct, we must have been for the last twenty years drinking all the pure abominations in the pharmacopeia, and this may account for our large lunatic hotel, and tie vast number of suicides that have taken place, in a very short period of time. Truly, these things will cease surely. A word to our English and Scotch brewers, aud that will suffice : they have taken a hint in time, and their exports to here will, if not already, be a thing of the past. With our enlarged breweries, and great competition, we are now getting a splendid glass of ale or porter, superior, as facts will prove, to most imported, as a great deal of that has frequently been sold in bond for the prohibitory duty of fifty shillings alone, and considerable quantities turned into the sewer. As we now get a superior liquor, less the fifty shilling duty, that article, ale and porter, is doomed as an import from home to a dead certainty, aud will be soon an article of export from New Zealand. More can be made now than consumed and must be exported. The late Lord Macauley says, for his work lives, that the time may come when a traveller from New Zealand might be seen, sitting on a broken arch of Loudon Bridge, sketching the ruins of St. Paul’s, forbid that we should ever see the sketch, but tbe time will aud has come and has been seen, when a traveller from New Zealand, with a goodly team of bales of wool and flax, with a few cases of ale and porter as samples of the'produce of New Zealand and Dunedin, wending his way along London Bridge, and that is a more cheering sketch and looks as pretty as the ruins of a cathedral. A portion of the said ale and porter was sent back to Dunedin, and after a double voyage, arrived in splendid order, and that is more than the old country liquor will do, so if our home friends will send out their young men and maidens to assist in tbe manufacture of the articles, we will be enabled to repay them with the same, as New Zealand with its peculiar climate is enabled to produce certain articles for consumption and export, that most of the other colonies in the Southern Hemisphere are unable on account of their climate to do. So farmers keep up hearts of oak ; this and that will keop money in the country, give you a market for your produce, and will assist you more than a protective duty, or a new bank to lend you money, aud then to sacrifice you. With our wool and flax, our oats and potatoes alone, not taking the millions of pounds of gold yet to be dug out of the stony lands, without a prophetic eye, there is a good time coming for this our adopted land.—l remain, &c.,