THE BISHOP OF NELSON IN MELBOURNE.

Grey River Argus, Volume XII, Issue 1421, 19 February 1873, Page 4

THE BISHOP OF NELSON IN MELBOURNE.

The Melbourne correspondent of the Otago Times writes — A good deal of amusement has been afforded us the last week by a ridiculous speech delivered the other evening at a Bible Society meeting, by the Rev Dr Suter, Bishop of Nelson, who is visiting here on his way to England. The right xcv. gentleman, in the course of bis remarks, and in a tone rather of sorrow than of anger, told his hearers that " he did not come to Melbourne in the best of tempers." Having aroused attention and curiosity as to the cause which had disturbed the episcopal bile, he proceeded to state that it was owing to our having passed the Education Act that his mind was filled with wrath against us. /He went on to say that he had expected to see his audience all wearing black, as in mourning for tbe passing of this godless measure. The bishop evidently expected to meet with an outburst of sympathy, and was shocked to find that people were divided between a tendency to laugh and a disposition to feel annoyed, at the grossly impertinent manner in which the bishop alleged the disturbance of his temper as one of the portentous effects ot tbe Act. To us this phenomenon had not the fearful character the bishop supposed. We are all pretty well aware that our Education Act has fluttered a good many clerical tempers, and stirred up a good deal of clerical wrath, and therefore were enabled to outlive the bad temper of the Bishop of Nelsoo. Dr Suter, in the course of bis speech," talked over again, as discoveries of his own, the old platitudes which our clergy had been talking all through the discussion, and at length ended, to the satisfaction of his audience and to the great relief of bis brother clergymen who were with him on the platform. His speech was received by the Press with d chorus of derision. A day or two after he sent a letter to the newspapers to the effect that, although he could not retract what he had said about education — which nobody wanted him to do — certainly not the friends of the measure he so foolishly denounced — he very much admired Melbourne, and should recommend his New Zealand friends to come and visit us. Dr Suter is going to Europe. Travel may open his mind, remove some narrow prejudices, show him that the world is not cast in the Suterian mould, and still moves. He may come back with more liberal views and less presumption, a wiser and better tempered man than he . goes home. Let us hope that this may be the case. .