ABOUT CHURCH MATTERS.

Patea Mail, 12 July 1882, Page 3

ABOUT CHURCH MATTERS.

Knowing that your correspondence column is open to the expression of any honest opinion, I beg to say a few words on your report of the proceeding’s instituted for the purpose- of raising a new church in Patea. The meeting showed what a fund of guileless and unworldty innocence there still exists among modern Christians, and utterly refuted the notion that selfish motives of any kind lie at the bottom of the views expressed by either of the speakers. To borrow money wherewith to build a new church, while a large sum (borrowed to pay off the last Curate) is still owing on the old buildihg, is an admirably faithful rendering of the precept “ Owe no man anything, but to love one another. ” Cutting up the parsonage property for a land speculation is quite an apostolic idea ; and getting money anyhow, “if not by one waj', then by another ” (as the Rev. Mr Keating said) touches the heart of the whole matter. But fancy Paul, or Peter, or their unselfish Master presiding at a land sale, or a bazaar, or a church ball (Hawera style) ; can we not picture the scorn and contempt with which such scenes and their promoters would be viewed ? That Mr Keating will deliver a lecture much better worth hearing than Colonel Ingersoll’s “Mistakes of Moses” is indubitable, because Mr Keating says so himself, and as from the familiar way he calls him “ Bob ” it is evident that he is on terms of great intimacy with the archheretic : he of course knows all his weak points. Poor, poor Ingersoll ! I have no doubt that , Mark Twain would give a thousand dollars to hear Moses lecture ; it would pay him as the best investment he ever made ; his next book would seli by thousands of copies and would be very funny, but-I fear—it would be hard on poor Moses. Lux.