BAPTISM EXTRAORDINARY AT THE WAIRARAPA.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume I, Issue 44, 3 December 1869, Page 3

BAPTISM EXTRAORDINARY AT THE WAIRARAPA.

The * Wairarapa Mercury,' of : a recent date, says:—"One of those scenes that have made the Wairarapa, during the last six monthsj so notorious, took place at 'Master-toil on Sunday last. The sect known generally as Plymouth Brethren, but wiiose members refuse' the appellation, has been in the habit of holding meetings at different times both in Carterton and Masterton, under the direction of Messrs. Peist, Compton, and Crayne, since the much-re-gretted accident that caused the death of Mr. Backland. So long as their services have been conducted quietly and orderly, we have not thought it our duty to criticise the meeting or the doctrines propounded to the various audiences. But, when religion is turned into ridicule, and opportunity is given to those who never neglect the chance offered of turning subjects that ought to be treated with respect • into ribald jests, Ave cannot abstain from pointng out to the public generally, and the sect of which Mr. Peist is the recognised head in the Wairarapa in particular, the advisability of either discontinuing his practices, or adopting some more private and judicious manner of carrying them out. The spectacle, on Sunday last, of a crowd, numbering some three score people, gazing at Mr. Compton baptising or "'dipping' some dozen people of different sexes in a creek running at the back of Mr. Feist's residence, is. we are glad to say, not often seen in this district. "One oid man (whose grey hairs at least should have protected him from ridicule), too feeble to walk, was actually carried into the bath. He had passed the age mentioned by the Psalmist as the period to which man can aspire to live, and had experienced an epileptic Jit some, time ago. It is needless to add that the result is what might have been expected to ensue. If spiritually "cured, his body is certainly worse. The whole proceedings were a grotesque burlesque on the Baptismal Ceremony: The candidates, with hands folded—■ women's garments being tied round—the officiating clergyman taking hold of what the policeman would term the ' scruff of the neck/ and plunging the patient backwards bodily, head and all, into the muddy water —the plunging, the religious formula used, the sputtering, the re-appearance ail dripping, the congratulatory shake of the hands on ' a soul being saved;" and all this raking place amid an uproar of what we believe they term' ' singing,' were sights that may be imagined but cau-

riot" jVe described. Mr. Feist himself was a candidate, and thought the most appropriate costume for the occasion was a large pair of indiarubber boots, reaching pa«t the knee which must have been a considerable weight when full of- water.. He wound up the performance with a sermon, and at the conclusion a profane member of the audience threw a dog into the bath. If people will go to these meetings to gape with .wonder and ridicule, they might at least keep their blasphemous remarks to themselves,, until the departure of the members of the sect who regard it as a part of thdr religion."