YESTERDAY’S NEWS.

Evening Star, Issue 3085, 8 January 1873, Page 3

YESTERDAY’S NEWS.

We understand the Chinese working on that portion of the Clutha Railway near the township of Milton, sub-contracted for by Ah l ong, have struck work. They complain of not being able to obtain their wages from their employer Ah Tong. We observe from a Canterbury contera porary that the ordination of Mr H. .1. C. Gilbert, late Wesleyan minister at Balclutha, as a deacon of the Knglish Church, was appointed to take place at St M ichael's Church, Christchurch, on Sunday, the 22nd December.

On Sunday morning last. Mr Treeby’s Bridge Hotel, Shotover, was totally destroyed by fire. The tenement was a twostoried one ; but so rapidly did the flames do their work that it was with difficulty all the inmates escaped. The premises were insured for L2OO.

“ Cool as a Cucumber” at the Princess Theatre, last evening, with Mr Hoskins as Plumper, Mr Musgrave as Barkin?, and Miss Gassy Matthews as Muggins, was very amusing. The audience, though not so large as on previous evenings, was ; umerous and cheerful. The pantomime was repeated, and will be presented this evening for the last time.

There is some probability of a match being player! between a team of the Timaru Cricket Club and the Otago Eleven who are now preparing for the forthcoming Interprovincial match at Christchurch. A letter was received yesterday from the Tirnaru people, requesting that arrangements be made for the gone, and suggesting that it might be played on either the up journey to Christchurch or during the return. Something requires to be done towards widening the road or reducing the curve at I ook-out Point, where the coach accident happened the other day. It is only two days ago that three gent'emen left Dunedin with a buggy and pair, about one o’clock, for Tokomairiro, and when at the point referred to, the driver, in the darkness of the night, drove too near the edge of the road, and the buggy went over the embankment. It was smashed, but both men and horses escaped unhurt.

The second of the series of meetings for united prayer, in connection with the worldwide concert of prayer arranged by the Evangelical Alliance, was hsld at St. Andrew’s Church, last evening. The Rev. John Gow presided. The meeting was addressed by the Rev. A. Reid, and prayer was offered by the Revs. A. Blake and T, Roseby, and by Messrs J. Mactie and A. Torrance. The subject of prayer was “ For Christian Churches, their increase in love, activity, fidelity to the truth, and the dearer - of the unfty m the faith, for ministers, np ss i onar^s > an{ l evangelists.” The next meeting will be held this evening, at the Hanover street Baptist Church, at half-past seven o’clock. The subject of prayer this evening is, “F"r families, for schools, for young men, children, servants, and for the afflicted.”

The Rev. E. 1.-. Stanford is reported to have made the following observations in the course of his farewell sermon at Tokomairiro:—“Undoubtedly in the present day there is an ever increasing tendency to separate the religious and the secular life, to keep one for Sunday and another for week days, to treat religion as though it were not a blood relation of all business, to fear the commingling of the two, Jest the delicate potteryware of Christ’s service should suffer injury upon the stream of life from the ironwork of daily business, and every fresh step towards this bourne will render it more difficult for priest and people to walk in the house of God as friends, I might illustrate the truth of all this by referring to the astonishment felt, or pretended sometimes, when a minister of the Gospel commits a crime, as though he were not just as weak as anyone else, just as liable to fall, just as poor and feeble ; or I might argue from the readiness which silly folks show to rush into print when they have got a bishop to abuse, but such things are only straw’s to indicate the current, and the real proof of what I say to you to-night lies in the thousand and one conversations in which yon and I have opened our hearts to one another for eight years past. I might go on to speak about the proper position, amusements and life of a minister among his people, for this is but a branch of the same subject, In my heart were it not for the fear of offending the weak brethren I would go to every place where men congregate -- the bars of public-houses, the little inner room where men gamble, the ball-rooms and racecourses, being sure, that if it were harmless for you to go there it could not be wrong for me—that we must live a social life together, since 1 would walk with you as friends. And now let me note another weakness in our Church association of a more solemn nature. I plead guilty myself in common with yourselves to forgetting too often tho one solo object and aim for which a Church exists, in the desire to gpt on, to get money, success, to make some marked improvement in our material progress, clear off our debt or improve our church property—is this not forgotten'? Ani this thought leads us deeper still. What actual progress have we made within our Church circle in adding souls to the eternal kingdom of our God. This is after all the one consideration of paramount importance.”