MARTIN LUTHER.

Thames Guardian and Mining Record, Volume I, Issue 36, 17 November 1871, Page 3

MARTIN LUTHER.

To the Editor of the THAMES GUARDIAN. Sin,—l am a member of the Church of England, and consequently a Protestant, but I must say that I was disgusted with the bigotry exhibited by the Rev. W. J. Williams on liis lecture on Martin Luther yesterday evening. It was throughout a bitter attack upon Catholicism, given in a thorough sectarian spirit, and, in my humble opinion, is the very worst of taste. In this country there is no State religion, be it remembered, and ever}' one is free to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience and according to the light given him ; but surely this can bo done without hating one’s neighbour and denouncing him from the pulpit. On

many of the principal points of Christianity all denominations agree, and for one sect to attack another in this free country, and to talk such rubbish as the battle of Protestantism having to be fought in New Zealand is both ridiculous and, in my humble opinion, extremely ill-judged.. If tho spirit of Wesley hovered about his church at Grahamstown last evening it had not innoculated the Rev. Chairman or tho Rev. Lecturer. Tho lecture was a very long one, far too long to be published in full in tho columns of a newspaper, but tho report in your paper gives a fair outline of tho sort of diatribe delivered by this Coromandel Christian. I wish he cpuld be induced to publish it in pamphlet form. He told his hearers it was his first essay on lecturing ; and that it may be his last unless he can speak with toleration of other Christian bodies who may differ from him, is the swish of, sir, yours obediently, * A Churchman. P.S.—As a rule I do not think religious discussion a suitable topic for newspaper comment, but in this instance such a public, and, uncalled for, attack was made upon a large section of the community that I think it should not pass without remark. Shortland, November 16, 1871.