CORRESPONDENCE.

Tuapeka Times, Volume II, Issue 55, 27 February 1869, Page 3

CORRESPONDENCE.

BISHOP JENNER. (To tlie Editor of the Tuapeka Thnes.) Sir, — I have been mucli disgusted by tbe scurrilous tone of a letter in your last number, signed " Not at all Cross." The writer evidently ima.gines impertinence and wit synonymous, and from his frequent reference to the dictionary appears one of those uneducated persons who are compelled to keep that guide to spelling constantly beside thorn. The whole tone of his letter displays the spirit which actuates the opponents of Bishop Jenner. In spite of his most convincing statement at Duuedin, they continue to repeat the old stalo charges which wore originally cow piled from the veracious colmnus of that model of Christian charity and courtesy The Record. They make great capital of the executions in the reign o£ Queen Mary, forgetting that in the two previous and two subsequent reigns a far larger number of Catholics perished for following the dictates of their consciences than during the sovereignty of the so-called "Bloody Queen." In fact, persecution Avas in those days regarded as a legitimate weapon of controversy, and was made use of by all parties — witness the case of Calvin and Servctus. In the words of Byron — Christiana have burnt each other, quite persuaded That all the apostle 3 would havo done as they did. It would be well then if the dead past Avere allowed to bury its dead, and controversialists would adopt their arguments to modern circumstances. Fire and faggot have given place to syllogism and sorites, but the pack who clamour against Dr. Jenner,. conscious of their weakness in anything like fair dis3ussion, prefer to frighten timid brethren into, support of their views by a false alarm of " Papacy !" They go as far as ever Torquemada and the Spanish Inquisition went, by deliberately denying the right of private judinent. They attack a man for his thoughts, which they do not even pretend to assert he has either expressed or acted upon. Because Bishop Jenner has shown an amount of liberality, raro indeed amoii* the clergy, and officiates in places of worship representing the most vafio-1 opinions, they attack him, disingenously attributing to him the peculiar doctriacs held by the incumbents of a few of those churches. As woli might a traveller— say Dr. Norman MacLeod, the Scotch Presbyterian, for instance —who has visited a Moslem mosque be denounced as a follower of Mahommed, or Mr. Hepworth Dixon accused of a belief in tiie book of Mormon. I am glad to see, however, that they " have heated a furnace for their foo so hot that it did burn themselves," and that popular feeling is almost unanimous iv supporting thafc gentleman and scholar who has so feelingly appealed to ira decision. So:ne fovv bigoted and bilious individuals continue to attack tlie man wlicpo intoU

lectual powers will, they fear, throw them entirely into the shade. lam sorry any respectable journal should permit its columns to be used as an \ instrument by such persons. They naturally become more clamorous as their defeat appears more imminent, and their style of controversial writing reminds me of the aphorism of Hazlitt — " every man in a crowd has the power to throw mud, nine out of ten the inclination." I cannot^ in conscience trespass on your space much longer, but cannot refrain from remarking on the bad taste and unchristian malevolence those clergymen have displayed who joined in the attack on a brother minister, a consecrated bishop of their church, and one who, thei'e is a probability, may be their own spiritual head. Such behaviour goes far to prove that the statement recently made by an English newspaper, viz., that the colonies are to a great extent a locus penitent ice for the failures of the clerical profession, is not without some foundation, in fact. I am, &c. Anglic ax. Lawrence, Feb. 24th, 1869.