A SUNDAY AT WYNDHAM.

Mataura Ensign, Volume VI, Issue 257, 22 May 1883, Page 5

A SUNDAY AT WYNDHAM.

"OHUROHLESS" ON ME HENRY. Someone has said that it is always the unexpected that happens. Quite unexpectedly I . found myself upon a recent Saturday night a prisoner in the township of Wyndham. The prospect of remaining until the following Monday was, in the circumstances, certain, ly not cheering. Bain was falling 1 heavily and I was prisoner in the hotel. Nor had the weather improved when morning appeared — morning, not daylight, at least only a very small portion of the latter— accompanied by drizzling rain, that most dispiriting of all weather. If I had not made up my mind to hear the local preacher on the Sunday evening I should certainly haye decamped. However, the day was passed more comfortably than I had anticipated. I looked up a friend and the hours were begui'ed with cheroots and conversation. Having this sketch in view I endeavored to extract from my friend all the information I could upon Wyndham ecclesiastical matters. But my efforts were fruitless, He would not be kept to the pole and continually jumped over the traces; ! and the peculiarity of this is that he I had not been used to running in i double {harness, though the contemplation of such a possibility may have been the cause of his skittishness. He shied at every bush beneath which I had laid my traps for information, and, although I was most careful in my manipulation of the whip and reins, we were often overturned. Wyndham,l learned, does not even possess a church building and services are for the present conducted by the Presbyterian section of the community in the schoolhouse. Although there is no church, there is a very creditable manse and a resident preacher. Mr Henry doeSj not appear to be a man likely to infuse a great deal of life of any kind into his parishioners, and hence their churchless condition. The district is a wealthy and rising one, and should certainly possess a substantial church. The minister is much to blame for this. He is a man entirely devoid of energy, and would much rather take things just as they are than trouble himself to improve matters. Mr Henry is what the Bev. Dr Salmond would call " only half a man " j in other words, he runs the manse single handed. Possibly if he could induce some lady to * amalgamate,' Wyndham in spiritual matters would have a more lively time. At present things are very stagnant Everything about Mr Henry givts evidence of his solitary

condition. His dress and manner are unmistakably of the bachelor type whilst an aroma of tobacco speaks plainly of bachelor comforts. He hos rather a fine physique. As the stranger enters the sanctuary his first thought is that from such an intellectual head some pearls of oratory and thought must fall. The stranger, however, is taken in. But I anticipate. At Wyndham the service is held in a schoolroom, cold, cheerless, comfortless, and this, with the want of energy on the part of the minister, will probably account for the very small congrega^ ions. The singing, as wight be expected, is primitive, but quite in keeping with the surroundings. Although easy - going and simple minded, language and enunciation proclaim the minister a scholar. His delivery is as monotonous as his actions are studiously indolent. He is a man who may possiby get through a deal of study work, and one who courts retirement and the dolce far niente. He is evidently most ti icerc f but he lacks energy in his preaching as in everyihing else. There is just a tr>ce of earnestness in his manner now and then when he does make an effort to drive his nails home, and there is a shriek and a wail of fury when he misses the nail and hits his own fingers. He is a fire and brimstone preacher and seems to take a pleasure in bringing all his descriptive powers into operation as with all the realism of a Dore he limns the sinner's wretched fate. At these stages there is just a suspicion of overdone tragedy, the voice now sinkiug to the stage whisper in exhortation and then rising high in denunciatory expostulation. Sir Henry should remember a trite and applicable saying to the effect that a little of a good thing goes a long way. He should, also remember these winter evenings the freezing pedal appendages of his congregation.