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New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5217, 11 December 1877, Page 2

What sprightly things have been talked for these last fourteen years on the subject of union between the Otago and New Zealand Presbyterian Churches! Which of the two is to blame in the matter ? We must confess that the fault lies not with the “ Northern Church,” as deputises from Otago have been pleased to call them year after year at the meetings of Assembly; but with that of Otago. It is very well known that a common basis of union was arranged between the two Churhes fourteen or fifteen years ago, that all was arranged and agreed upon, and that when the rest of the Church in the North went down to “join hands,” the Synod of Otago drew back, and those from the North returned with disappointed hopes. Matters stood over for some years ; deputies and compliments and platitudes were exchanged. The younger spirits who had come out from the old country believed in these pretty platitudes, took them for realities, and about six or seven years ago urged the Assembly to appoint a Union Committee, and this committee had submitted to them those one-sided, we might say suicidal, terms to which the Assembly at Christchurch agreed. We well remember the expressions used by some of tile deputies there, and which sank so deeply into the minds of those who were so anxious for union in the North—expressions, in fact, which nearly broke the very heartstrings of those new comers who were in the depths of a first love for that union. It is only on the principle that “ love is blind” that we can account for the desire on the part of the New Zealand Presbyterian Church to close with such terras as were latterly proposed by Otago—terms which, had they been finally closed with, -would have deprived the Church that was to be formed out of this chaos of everything that savored of Presbyterian autonomy and of Presbyterian personal identity. When we state that the terms of union were such as did not admit of an appeal to the Assembly, even in a case of discipline or doctrine, it will be patent to the members of any Church, but especially to those of the Presbyterian body, that their Assembly could be nothing else than a mere conference, which could not do anything but indulge in such pretty platitudes and affectionate greetings as the Assembly has been accustomed to do on one evening of its sittings for the last fourteen years. These greetings were as affectionate on one side last night as ever; but it is acts, and not words, we venture to say, which can ever again have an effect on the other side. Our only explanation of the course the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand took at Christchurch is, that they were so thoroughly sincere in love, and so confiding in their hope, they took it for granted that it mattered not whether the love and esteeinof the other Church were won before or after the marriage. To such terms as these the North reluctantly nodded assent. Otago saw the wrong it had perpetrated, and said, “No.” No wonder that Mr. Paterson last night said it was with a feeling of relief they heard tile reply. Nor is it one whit less a wonder that Mr. Treadwell’s motion for the appointment of one more committee on union fell to the ground still-born, amid tbe breathless silence of most of the members, or was responded to only by an ominous shake of the head from others. Deputies may come and go, platitudes and greetings may be exchanged between the one Church and the other; but we venture to say that the Church of Otago must lay to heart the fact that New Zealand is not coterminous with Otago, and give evidence that its views are not bounded by the eight corners of the Octagon of Dunedin, ere the Northern Church, as they have been pleased to call it, believe that in speaking of union they are doing aught else than going on a first of April errand to the Synod of Otago.