Scrimgeour and Co.

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 45, 16 November 1937, Page 6

Scrimgeour and Co.

AGUR

Sir, — No doubt the great majority of your readers will heartily endorse the well-deserved strictures of your leading article on the Scrimgeour appointment, in Friday 's Herald-Tribune. The political side if the question is well and fairly put. On the ethical side of the question, the suitableness of such work for a minister of fihe Gospel, a little more miglit have been said. • The writer has long thought that it would be an immense gain, if in this and other countries, parsons and lawyers were barred from taking part in politics. In his fancied Utopia, parsons and lawyers would be given a very back seat indeed, if these supernumeries on the pay roll of an offete civilisation were admitted at all. Laymen with a conscience would be the preachers, and those without that embarrassing handicap to a successful legal career, would continue to be the lawyers, under restrietions limiting their power for evil. It is incredible that a minister of religion firmly believing in the fundamentals of the Gospel he is commissioned to preach, could aecept such an appointment; and it is equally incredible, that one could enter politics at all, if he had ever really understood the meaning of that Gospel that "is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth." How could anyone truly believing fihat, and having publicaly dedicated his life to the propagation of that truth, f orsafe his high ealling, and descend to the political depths of a Scrimgeour, or tbe trivialities of those who tickle the fancies of the frivolous and profane, with dramatic perf ormances . having as a grand finale, "a manniquin parade of the latest spring fashions"? This type of parson, with such a nebulous faith or none at all, is of • course no novelty, but seems to be more prominent than he was a generation or two ago, when the well-known Dean Alford 's father, on failing ill in Belgium and being attended by a Deistic doctor, and venturing on one occasion to remonstrate with him on the scantiness of his religious belief, receiv.ed the following surprising answer: "Moi, je suis laique, et je crois beaucoup; mais mon frere, il est abbe, et il ne eroit rien!" (Me, I am a layman and I believe a great deal; but my brother, he is an abbot and he believes nothing at all!) Those clergymen entering politics, and those wasting time and talents on things remote from their. real duties and'calling, are treating with comparative disregard a faith which they are not earnest enough, nor intelligent. enough to; comprehend; and a church tolerating such things, and permitting without protest, such men to. remain ministers in her service, and to call themselves "Revernd," will continue to loose inbuence, not -only over the indiff erent whom she is supposed .to devote her energies to arousing to the peril of their position, but with those laymen, who would support her could they feel a little less contempt for those who accept that qhurch's . salary, and fail so egregiously to perform the duties for which' they are paid. ' Is it any wonder, that with such a ministry the country is in the condition of moral rottenness the late trials for abortion show it to be in? The comment on such a lack of true faith, has been .written by Him that is True, on the steppes of Russia, on the plains of France, iiLihe homes of Germany, and in our own, and still we have not learnt the .lesson this commentary is meant to teach us. — Yours, ttc.,

Waipawa, 13/11/37. . . /