TWO LECTURERS: A CONTRAST.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 207, 22 August 1908, Page 6

TWO LECTURERS: A CONTRAST.

To the Editor. ■Sir—l have this week attended two lectures in New Plymouth each delivered by a lady, and the contrast between the two is in every way so striking that 1 am induced to write you a line on the differences I observed. The first lecturer was Miss Hughes, who gave a no-license address on Tuesday night in the Theatre Royal. AVhat impressed me most in this lecturer, was a bitter, arrogant, and overbearing, not to say bouncing, tone which ran through the whole theme. What little was given in !the way of argument, was tinctured by bitter/ -invective ot men as a sex and of those men in particular who are not of Miss Hughes' way of thinking as to wiiat they drink. There was much that was untrue—aa. when intoxicants were denounced as poisonous—tacked on to an extraordin- j ary collection of more or less thread- ' bare anecdotes; but of anything to promote charity and goodwill I heard not a word. One listened in vain for an appeal to anything higher than increased trade for other business people if only the hotelkeepcrs could be driven out. Precisely the same argument might ..l,e used by a vegetarian female as an inducement to close the butchers' shops. How different was the whole mental atmosphere at St. Mary's Hall the following afternoon. Here, tpo, we were Udressed by an unmarried lady, but oh in how sympathetic and Christian a spirit. There was not one word of vituof the male sex, although none wore present. It was the difference ol light and darkness of Christian love and party hatred. Miss Hudson was not theatrical -in word or manner, yet 1 imagine there were few, if any, dry eyes amongst the audience. One could not help feeling as one heard her saintly sentences how much better is love | than law, and Christian charity than persecuting edicts. Why do so many J good people fly to Moses and Mount Sinai for their motive power instead of to Christ and Calvary? How the irony and stupidity of the prohibition movemen strikes one while listening to a loving, prayerful follower of the meek and lowly One like Miss Hudson. One had only one regret in leaving her meeting—that an oportunity had not been given for shaking her hand and wishing her God-speed in her great work. As the mother of a family I could wish that we imd many Miss lludsons in Xew Zealand.—! am, etc., A MATROX.

[We have taken the liberty to excise a part of our correspondent's criticism of Miss Hughes.—Ed.]