CENOTAPH AND CROSS.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXX, Issue 5442, 1 July 1929, Page 2

CENOTAPH AND CROSS.

(To the Editor.) Sir, —The recrudence and clash of ecclesiastical opinions anent the Cross as symbol of the Christian faith and its elimination from adorning the proposed cenotaph to be erected on Primrose Hill is to my befaddled lay mind most bewildering. The Rev. Lowden (Presbyterian), Paeroa, in a scathing onslaught trounces the “Gazette” for the publication of the considered opinions of the Mayor and council, which explained the .reason why the cross was excluded from the cenotaph. The reverend gentleman declared that the omission of the sacred symbol from the memorial to be erected was a direct insult to our dead soldiers and a slur on the sensibility of all Christians ; and the good pastor, in his general denouncement of the whole proceedings as un-Christian, did not let His Wor-' ship the Mayor escape his wrath. In a subsequent issue of the “Gazette” we find another esteemed gentleman has entered the lists, namely, Rev. Father Taylor, of our town. But the good Father, as befitting a Christian and a leader in matters of Christian charity, instead of “winking the other eye” for the lapse of his misguided brother-in-arms, metaphorically speaking, shakes “the tar out of him.” This phase of ecclesiastical offsidedness is most bewildering to me. However, I am aware that the Rev. Lowden has invited to some extent the severe strictures that have fallen his way ; but at the same time I believe him to be no less a thorough and sincere Christian. A material cross may not adorn the Rev. Lowden’s “citadel” and other places over which he presides, but who will deny the deeprooted Cross that lives in the conscience of every Christian, be he Presbyterian or otherwise. ? His only fault, after all, in the case under review is his over-zealousness to defend the rights of a sacred cause, of which he is one of the guardians—his overestimation and misinterpretation of both the Press and the Mayor’s real intention.

Let us all join whole-heartedly with our Mayor and make the projected scheme in hand a real success. W. H. TAYLOR.