MR R. GILLIES AND THE REV. W. BANNERMAN.

Evening Star, Issue 3531, 17 June 1874, Page 3

MR R. GILLIES AND THE REV. W. BANNERMAN.

[By Telegraph.] The Clutha Presbytery met to-day. After the formal business, Mr Bannerman read a long and virulent address, which was ohjected to by Mr Gillies, the accusation not defining the slander in exact terms. After a desultory and acrimonious discussion, the Presbytery adjourned till four o’clock, to permit Mr Gillies to amend.

The following are the principal parts of a speech delivered by the Rev. Mr Bannennan, at the Balclutba Presbyterian Ohuich soiree on April 2, and which was to be considered at the meeting or the Clutha Presbytery to-day. Mr Bannerman had attacked an article in the Daily Times re the Presbyterian clergy, and went on to say“ fi e had good reason to believe that the article referredtowas not written by the responsible editor of the ‘ Daily Times,’ but by one himself a Presbyterian, formerly an office-bearer in the Presbyterian Church, understood to be a large shareholder in the Daily Times Company, and not without influence in the management of that journal a gentleman who had publicly taken part in the discussion that resulted mtne opening of the Athenamm on the Lord s Day. ... The author was not now an office-bearer of the Presbyterian Ohurch ; perhaps he was not a member of it. . * •, t could only account for the excessive bitterness of the article on the ground that the writer was ill at ease m his conscience because of the part he played on the Sabbath question, that he was conscious he had done wrongly was too proud to acknowledge his error, and sought to find relief for their own bitterness of soul by seeking to make others equally wrong, Ba yiug of them what was truer of himself.”