DARKEST WELLINGTON. The Way Out.

Free Lance, Volume IV, Issue 161, 1 August 1903, Page 8

DARKEST WELLINGTON. The Way Out.

WELLINGTON'S spiritual needs have stirred the brethren in the South, axicl in a spirit of the most supeffb condescension they are letting the world know that Wellington shall no longer grovel in darkness while they have an arc light or two to spare. According to our Southern brethren, the Wellington candles are a nickering business anyhow, and, as a "necessity," and out of the fulness of the Southerners' heart, the arc lights will be substituted. r r + No wonder the lespected Rev. J. K. Elliott has rushed into the press to unbosom his pent-up feelings, and has waxed sarcastic at "the coming of the giants," and especially at the questionable taste or the very superior people who have patronisingly remarked ' that Presbyteriamsm in Wellington was at a particularly low ebb." The gentleman who said so, if he were anything but a clergyman, might at least be accused of want of tact and fairness, for when one knows what these Presbyterian charges have been to one of oi>r most energetic clerics, one knows of nothing that could be so wide of the mark as the statement of the Rev Mr. Gray, of Gore. ♦ * * Nobody doubts for a moment that the ao-c lights are good illuminants, but invidious comparisons in this connection are extremely ill-timed, and are not conducive to the popularity of the gentlemen who are eulogised to the detriment of the honoured men who have borne the heat and burden of the day. Mr. Gray said "there was great need in Wellington for one or two more strong, intellectual, good, Presbyterian ministers." The inference is very clear, and eminently tactless. The need Mr. Gray spoke of didn't exist for many many years, and then it had to be found out by the Southerners. +. * * The reverend gentlemen who are now taking the vacant places must realise how handicapped they are by these re-

fle tions on their piredecessois, and probably won't endorse them. In ail professions theie is an unwiitten code of etiquette. Evidently, some clencan gentleman's memory of the clauses m his particular code is hazy. The attitude of the Southern people is very like the attitude of the New Zealand footballeis, now in Australia, who thought it necessary to include in their war-cry the woids, "Woe, woe to you'" "Make w ay ' a greater than you cometh'" is not modest. It isn't a good start. People may not openly resent it, but they don't like it. Not all the people of Wellington have been able to see the mote that our Southern friends believe to be obscuring our vision. The self-sacrifice of it, too ' We can ill afford to lose our brightest intellects, but they are needed among the heathens of Wellington. We are sorry. Whatever changes it was thought necessary to make might have been made without hurting the feelings of able and earnest men. There was absolutely no need for any brazen-trumpet blowing at all.