A LOVEABLE MINISTER.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume IX, Issue 945, 21 May 1881, Page 2 (Supplement)

A LOVEABLE MINISTER.

The law courts have been the scene of several scandalous cases during the last month. Amongst others, the Ven. Archdeacon Dunbar, of the Church of England, appeared to defend a charge in the Divorce Court preferred by his wife, who claimed a separation on the ground of adultery and desertion. The reverend gentleman has been somewhat well-known for services of a peculiar type conducted in a proprietary chapel— to wit, Tavistock Chapel, St. Pancras. Here for two years he, without being a distinctive High Churchman in doctrine, adopted an excessive ritual with musical accompaniments. Though the place of worship was small comparatively, yet the choir numbered 100, and the altar and other lights some 200. The charges of the witnesses for the wife alleged drunkenness and licentious conduct with women in the vestry, which appears on certain occasions to have been used for supper parties, &c. One of the witnesses especially accused the archdeacon of an unlimited propensity for kissing, and averred that it took place 11 morning, evening, and every time in the porch at the church door, and at the cab door. As a matter-of-fact, the chapel and its services seem to have been somewhat of a commercial speculation, as in addition to collections, seats on special occasions were 6d and Is. Subsequently the investors retired from the undertaking, and the archdeacon appeared in the bankruptcy Court with debts amounting to £4OOO. lam bound to say that the respondent confronted the whole case with a most emphatic denial, and the witnesses he called supported his evidence to the satisfaction of the jury, who found a verdict in his favor without hesitation. The affair, however, is a warning to those gentlemen in the Church, who, with an excessive love of ritual are apt to win the rather marked attention of their devout female followers. There are plenty of people in the world always on the lookout for a scandal, but if there were no materials to work upon their trado would soon be ended.