Sarcasm from the Pulpit

Hokitika Guardian, 22 February 1922, Page 3

Sarcasm from the Pulpit

■ BALLARAT, Feb. 10

Clergymen of various denominations have frequently complained of the action of worshipers’in dropping in reopen ny pieces into the plates when weekly collections were made for church purposes. The Rev Walter Alhiston, chief secretary of the Protestant Federation, lias emphasised the complaints of the dissatisfied clergymen in regard to the donors of threepenny bits at church offertories. Preaching at the Rubicon street Methodist Church on Sunday night, the Rev Albitson, who is on an official visit to Ballarat from Melbourne, said: “The coin that, belongs to the Lord is threepence ; that is. when you are orthodox —when you arc teeling heterodox, and you have a threepence with a hole in it, and you cannot got rid of it anywhere else, then you bring it to church and give it to the Lord. Not that it is necessary-to confine yourself to that particular coin, but it seems to he the fashion to give the threepenny hits to God and keep the bigger coins for something else. God does not object to bigger coins.” Tt was noticed, notwithstanding the caustic remarks of the clergyman, that the threepenny hits still predominated in the collection at Rubicon street church on Sunday night.