TROUBLE IN SUVA.

Gisborne Times, Volume IX, Issue 823, 23 February 1903, Page 4

TROUBLE IN SUVA.

DESTRUCTION OF RELIGIOUS

BOOKS,

NATIVES’ CHANGE OF FAITH.

By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright Sydnoy, Feb. 21,

Tko Rev. Mr Nolan, a missionary at Trewa district, at present in Sydney, gives liis version of tho burning of Bibles. Ho says that tho chief of tho district of Matanitobua, with his people, for sometime has boon disaffected against the Govornment, having boon strongly in favor of federation with Now Zealand. He also has a disagreement with the native Methodist minister. The chief decided to show his authority against tho mission and tho Govornment by urging all his people to become Catholics. Mr Humphrey Berkeley is at tho bottom of the federation movement, and on his advice, as ho happened to know from himself, Catholic priests were taken down to Namosi, and it was arranged that tho people should become Catholics. It was during this visit that New Testaments and hymn books were collected. The Catholic Press, commenting on the news that tho natives havo become Catholics, says it is feasible, but that "•enuine Bibles were burned it does not believe. It is possible that Wesleyan literature was destroyed. Cardinal Moran has received no further information than that 238 Bibles were burned. He did not think the priests had anything whatover to do with it, but that probably it was the work of converts. A chief had informed Bishop Yidal, when at Namosi, that the Methodists were preying upon them and doing them no good; that tho desire to change the faith wa3 a voluntary choice of the natives, and decided upon after holding several councils of chiefs of the province. The Rev. Mr Lane, president of the Methodist Conference, said Cardinal Moran’s statement that the Methodists preyed on the natives was a libel upon the missionaries. His opinion was that the priests preyed on the natives.