PRESENTATION TO THE REV. A. BANNERMAN.

Evening Star, Volume VIII, Issue 3222, 18 June 1873, Page 3

PRESENTATION TO THE REV. A. BANNERMAN.

At the close of the induction services connected with the settlement of the Rev. J. M. Allan, as successor to the Rev. P. Kirkland, in the pastorate of the united congregation 0 f Inch Clutha and Kaitangata,l Mr Bannerman, who had presided at Mr Allan's induction, was presented with a purse of sovereigns, hy the parishioners, as a mark of their respect for him as a minister of the gospel, a nd as a token of their appreciation of the manner in which he had conducted the affairß of the congregation during tho vacancy. The presentation was made by Mr A. Anderson, who remarked that he had known Mr Bannerman a very long time, and remembered when Mr Bannerinan's parish extended from near to the Taieri river to the Bluff, and from the mouth of the Clutha as far westward as any white settler could be found. He could call to mind when horses were yet scarce, and Mr Bannerman on foot travelled hither and thither through swamp and scrub, and was 1 at his post at the appointed time in fulfilment of his ministerial duty. Since then many changes had occurred; but still they had their old friend and minister among them, as. willing and ready for work as he was in those early days; and of this they had several times of late had proof as a congregation, in the willingness and readiness shown by Mr Bannerman to serve them during the late vacancy, now happily at an end, through the harmonious settlement among them of Mr Allan. As some return for these services, he was deputed to put into Mr Bannerman's hands the purse he held, containing seventy-six sovereigns, which the members and adherents of the congregation had contributed in the course of a few days. . The rev. gentleman, in acknowledging the gift, said he had the fullest assurance that the congregation would show liberality to Mr Allan, as well as to the General Sustentation Fund, and bo free him, and help him to free the other ministers of the Church, especially those in rural districts, from those many hindrances to wbioh they were subjected in the way of fulfilling the high responsibilities of the ministerial office. From the smallness of the salaries given to their ministers, these were called upon

to do many things which stood much in the way of their attention being given undividedly to those .studies and preparations .essential to the full and satisfactory preaching of the Gospel. They had too much of manual labor imposed upon them. Unable to pay for a man to attend to horse, and cow, and garden, etc., absolute necessities in their position, they had to attend to all these matters themselves, lessening their time for study and pastoral duty, and often interfering with and hindering their own proper work. Their ministers suffered on this account, but the people, he believed, suffered far more—and they were themselves to blame ; for did they place their minister in a proper position pecuniarily, they would then be able to sit free from those drawbacks, and be enabled to give more time to study, and better sermons, and more frequent and higher intercourse with their people would be the result. Mr Bannerman next referred to the remarks which certain writers had recently made in the daily Press of Dunedin, in harmony with a general running down of their ministers and church, since the meeting of the Synod in January last, that had characterised the dailies of Dunedin. Those remarks consisted of a comparison drawn between certain of the leading ministers of the Presbyterian Church of Victoria and their own ministers—not very favorable to the latter. It seemed to be for gotten that it was not very likely that those Victorian ministers, coming to such a congregation as that of the First Church, would do otherwise than, to use a common expression, put their best foot foremost; that they would take from the fabled barrel of sermons not their worst, or even their second best productions, and make those the staple of their temporary ministrations in Dunedin, but their best thought out and most elaborated discourses, as he himself would do were he to visit Melbourne, for instance; and that he would do for his own credit, as well as for the credit of his brother ministers of Otago, and of their people there. In such circumstances, it was altogether unfair to draw a comparison between the from hand-to-mouth productions of the Otago ministers, their every week, ordinary productions, and it may he the oft-revised and carefully prepared discourses of some of the very elite of the Vwtoriau punistors, whose salaries doubUu§ aa<s

tripling those of the Ot»go ministry, them with facilities and time for study and the composition of aermous denied to them J » Otago. He had no hesitation in saving that the Otago ministers could well stand a comparison with any similarly situated with themselves—a position, though no mean one, yet capable, as he most willingly admitted, of improvement, and which would be improved were the ministers placed in more favorable circumstances than what now are theirs, through having much to engage their attention and time far from conducive to study and composition. Let the congregations respond to the effortsnowboingmade by the Sustentation JJ und Committee of the Church, composed now entirely of laymen, and anxious to raise the stipends of the ministers above the wages ordinary tradesmen, and he doubted not that the entire body of the Presbyterian ministers throughout Otago would speedily prove themselves umraxpassad by a like body anywhere. Time, facilities for study, freedom from the cankering care which inadequate means of support will produce, would be theirs, and the result would be as much to the benefit of the oojjpegation as to the credit of the ministry. Their liberality to himself on the present occasion would prove no small boon in enabling him to obtain these advantages, and that liberality he looked upon as an index and proof, not only of their approval of his conduct among them, but of their desire that their own and the other ministers of the church should be suitably maintained, and of their ready willingness to help towards so desirable an end. After again thanking them for their gift, and referring to their former kindness towards him when Mr Kirkland was settled among them (when a purse containing 130 sovereigns was presented to him), Mr Bannerman concluded by commending the new minister and the congregation to the grace of God, and, expressing his earnest wish that the union formed between them would result in lasting blessings to the district. — Bruce Herald. •