PUBLIC OPINION.

Patea Mail, 12 July 1882, Page 3

PUBLIC OPINION.

Contributions, Letters, Inquiries and Answees thereto, are invited on Farming, Commerce, Politics, and matters of interest to the Patea district. Names of writers need not be Printed. . THE PROPOSED NEW CHURCH. May I thank your several correspondents who write in such complimentary terms of myself and so favorably-of the project now before Patea—the erection of a new church. The need is felt by all, and the gentleman who expresses a. doubt as to the earnestness of the Patea Churchpeople upon this project would have it at once dispelled if he would favor me with liis card, or spend an afternoon with me in calling upon parishioners. There is not a Churchman in the place who is not ready to admit at once our low present condition, and the absolute necessity of a new church. I should bo sorry to accuse such a well-wisher as this correspondent unquestionably is, of any want of tact : indeed this would harm the cause more than him ; but I do trust that he will allow me to remove the one doubt to which his able letter gives expression. With regard to .the amounts contributed at the recent meeting and since then, they are to be published very shortly, and are ; withheld for the moment merely that the sura total may be a still greater encouragement to those upon whom the thankless duty of collecting such donations will fall ; and with the hope, as one of your correspondents suggests, that some larger amounts than any yet promised may begin the list. With myself the object is one that can have no special connection. The people of Patea have a God ( a Redeemer, and an eternity before them, quite irrespective of any Curate; and as one late and lamented vestryman wisely said, for about ten years we (the Church-folk of Patea) have had no heavy calls made upon us for religion, and it is high time that we did something for the Church worthy of ourselves and such a cause. I and doubtless others noticed that this opinion was heartily endorsed at our late meeting by a greeting of special applause. The church cannot be built immediately, and any suggestion of undue haste, or of the advisability of more deliberateness and consideration, would mean in reality that no church is desired for another year or more.—Yours, &c., J. Lloyd Keating.