CURRENT TOPIC. (By Zamiel in the "Auckland Star")

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 362, 24 April 1889, Page 3

CURRENT TOPIC. (By Zamiel in the " Auckland Star ")

Some writo, a neighbour's name to lash, Some write— vain thouerht! for needful cash, oome write to please the country clash, T -, And raise a din. i'or me, an aim T never fash— I write for fun.

Maxy a capital story has been told at the xpense of the late James Macandrew in the good old days when lie was Sup.erintcn" tendent and lord high commissioner gener ally in the flourishing little province of Otago, but of all these stories one I heard the other day certainly takes the cake. In those bygone days, imprisonment for debt wassbillinvoguc,anditfso happened that Mac. ■was temporai'ily unable to meet an engagement with a creditor, and was consequently ordered to be imprisoned until he could. Macandrew was a man fertile in expedients by which to circumvent a difficulty, and he set, his -wits -to work. > Summoning his, executive officer, he ordered him to prepare the official , notice necessary to constitute the Macandrew villa residence, a public prison.,. The forms were signed, 'the private secretary appointed Go\ernor, and 'the wily Macandrew retired 'within the precincts of his own mansion a 'prisoner for debt, bub triumphant in having euchred the too pressing creditor. ' " ' ' " Let us get rid of this sensationalism, friends," said the Rev. Scott West as he addressed a' gather ing in the Mount Eden Congregational Church. " Ministers should pieach Clmst, and Him crucified, and leave out this shilly-shally sentiment, which has neither backbone nor sense, and fails to reach the man of intelligence." Zamiel thoroughly agrees with these remarks of the worthy minister of St. David's, and also with his subsequent satire upon his brothers in the faith. With a grim smile on his face he continued : " The Church is fast coming towards the show business, i have been thinking over headings for sermons to rank wich ' A Little Man up a Tree,' meaning Zacchseus. Perhaps ' Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep ' would do nicely for Jonah in the whale's stomach, and that of the 'Wild Man of the Woods ' might do for Nebuchadnezzar eating grass. _ One night for sixpence and one night only." This of course set the audience off laughing, but the speaker gravely said: "The churches are fast coming towards that, and we will &oon see that the churches are becoming mere shows." * Quite so, friend West. None can doubt but that such is the case, and Zamiel agrees with you that it would be wiser to give it up, for after all they may preach their liveliest and even then they can't compete with the burnt cork, and — well, girls at the Hugo's, to say nothing of libtle Tom Thumb Robinson, the Australian midget. If people won't go to church as a matter of right, all the sensationalismin the world will fail to fix them, and they will develop into runners hither and thither after the newest sensation. The Rev. Scott West next lashed out in another direction. He said that the great thing now-a-days was to get the New Zealand produce to the Home market in good condition. He had struck an idea ■which lie might patent. Said he, "In going round the churches I have been struck with the chill that there is. about them, and 1 have come to the conclusion that they would make splendid freezing chambers, and if thud utilised, the poor minister who never gets a holiday and is used to the chill atmosphere, might be sent Home as manager for the trip. Understand me ; the cold comes from within, not without, for we have a beautiful climate here, and until we make our churches warmer we will never have progress in them."' That's not bad, you know, especially for a Presbyterian minister. What a l'elief it would be to the congregations, and abo the poor reporters at the Presbytery, if ministers indulged in a little more of such plain talking. Rather a good suggestion has been made for settlement ot the dispute between the Grocers' Association and the Pukekohe farmers on the much- vexed question of fixing the prices for butter and eggs. It is that each farming district should have a representative on the Association to assist in the deliberations which take place once a week, so that both sides may have a say in the matter. The only ■difficulty I see is the rather touchy tern per possessed by some of each party. When the freshness of eggs and the sweetness of butter are in question, it might be dangerous to bring about a meeting which would provoke the warlike natures of the opposing factions. A free fight with half-pound pats of butter and half-hatched eggs would not be conducive to the resumption of amicable relations, so perhaps the grocers and the farmers had better keep a safe distance from each other, and allow the law of supply and demand to settle their differences. w + * *■ -*• - Have you ever felt in a false position through someone else's fault ? Well, I have. This is how it was. I went with I friend — a guileless young man — to a minstrel show once ; to what show it was a won't say, bub it wasn't to the Buffalo Minstrels. We occupied a seat in the front row of the orchestra stalls, about the centre. The theatre was filled, the company being blessed with a good house. All went well for the first hour or so, until a banjo soloist appeared on the stage and proceeded to give ub an experience of his powers. The piece was " Home, Sweefc Home," with variations. There' was very much variation about it and little sweet home business. You could have heard a pin drop, the silence was oppressive, when the stillness was broken by my guileless companion, who, leaning over, said in a very loud "whisper, " Don't see much tune in that, d'you ?" The orchesbra jerked round their heads to see who ifc was, j the people areund frowned at me and the stalls sniggered, while the soloist, after darting a look of venom at the youth, now subsided, broke away into some glorious melody. Ib boot a lob to persuade me thab that young man nad nob done it on purpose, and ib took a great deal bo persuade some people ib wasn't me. *• #• *■ # -* t •* * * ***3?is distance lends enchantment to the -view/ The author of the "Pleasures of Hope* was righb when he wrote those words, but he failed to mention the disadvantages attending distance. Melbourne is only a,matterof cix days from Auckland, and yet I have during the past two or three weeks heard of some four old Aucklanders there who have given up the ghosb, according bo reporb, when bhey are now in splendid health ; also a couple of families and several individuals on whom the typhoid fiend was said bo have seized when they - laughing him to scorn. It is passing

strange how these talcs originated. I sincerely trust that the wish was not father to the thought in the minds of the fabricators of these stories. 1 know of one case whero the wish fathered the thought of an ex-Aucklander's good fortune. Hearing that a once well-known citizen ivas doing well ovor the other side, his creditors here held a meeting, and passed a resolution recommending him to declare a dividend out of his increasing wealth. 1 cannot say what his answer was, but I should imagine it to have been something like " I'll &co you hem, first !" 1 have., perused with interest an 'account of a conference recently, held in "donee" Dunedin of members of t4»o Dunedin Presbytery and omce-beaiers of the Presbyterian churches, to solemnly consider whatshould be done about tho^c erring Scotch sheep who were wandering from the fold through their non-attendance at church. It seems that Dunedin — which has hitherto been held up to the admiration of the colors by Presbyterian mccnisteis as a model of church - going piety and 1 Sabbath observance — has fallen fiom her high estate, and is really much moro lax in these points, I grieve to say, than any other New Zealand town. Even our own Auckland, though far from being a good church -going city, is better in this respect than much - beloved Dunedin, and the conference seemed to recognise this, and eaine'stly considered what steps should be taken to bring back the backsliding one's to the boaom of the kirk. However, they came to no conclusion at all. excepting the rather vague finding tbab a large body of the general community do not go »to chuich ; that even thos&.-v\ho are nominal Presbyterian church meuibcis stay away, " especially on a fine Sabbath,'" and that a gicat '"leakage" is going on from within tho church. The chiet crmplaint made at ihe conference, pubforwaid by the Kov. llr Nome, seems to ha^e been the non-attondanco of natives of "Caledonia stern and wild *' and their descendants at church on a line " Sawbath." He vehemently attacked this pernicious habit as striking at the very vitals of the Church's well being, and went so far as to say that all who did not attend service were "living without God and without hope in the world." This seveie denunciation of all and sundry non-churchgoers, simply because they do not happen to fall in with the Rev. Nome's idea of religious duty, is rather unjust to chose who claim liberty of thought and action, and may fairly elicit a similarly strong reply fiom those hopeless Duncdite> who have had the misfortune to be assailed with the thunders of ecclesiastical wrath. If churches are less numei'ously attended than they weie, would it not be more to the purpose for ministers, instead of launching forth futile denuncia tions, to consider whether the blame does not lie at their own door? Who can we blame for the waning influence of t.lre pulpit except the men who occupy it, and who from some cause or other have lost their old power o\ er the people ? It is, indeed, presenting duty in a needlessly disagreeable form to a-?k a man who possesses a keen sense of enjoyment of this beautiful world to leave the glorious balmy air and bright sunshine of a ilnu Sunday morning tor the inside ot a stuffy, btifi, formal building, with its nncomfoifcable upright pews, and listen to a stereotyped, dreary sermon, containing the same weary platitudes he has heaid ever since he first went to tho "kiik" clad in the usual Scripture phraseology which from its very familiarity falls like an empty sound, and without etlecc on his drowsy eais? And while fiom outside the weary one can hoar the merry twittering of the little feathered songsters, rejoicing in the b!o??cd lu\u»\- of warmth ;ind light, as if inviting him to join in their exuberance, it i-- but natural that he should wish himself out ot his hard seat and in joyful surroundings, and on the next occasion fch'6uld leave church, pi each er, psilm-book, and all to take a waUc and drink in the breeEy ozone, and enjoy the weather. It is not for me to advise the Church fatheis how all this is to be lemedied, but we know that there are some real, live churches in connection with which wo hear no complaint of waning attendance or listlessness. It would ho well for the grave and venerable seigniors of the Dunedin Church to ascertain the reason why.