A CLERICAL SCANDAL.

Tuapeka Times, Volume V, Issue 242, 19 September 1872, Page 5

A CLERICAL SCANDAL.

St. John the Baptist's is the most fashionable of the Episcopal churches in Christchurch, and. the' Key. Ebenezer Bailey, its late pastor, was the most popular preacher in that city. By a portion of his congregation, and by the poor of his parish, be is said to have been beloved, but was greatly disliked in certain high places. Perhaps it was that he was too outspoken, for in his sermons and public addresses he hesitated not to attack pubic abuses, and often rated the authorities soundly for neglecting what he considered to be their duty. It will also be recollected of him that shortly after his arrival in the Colony he delivered a lecture on a popular subject, which showed him to be possessed of very great talent, but unfortunately it afterwards turned out that a portion of that lecture was taken unacknowledged from an almost forgottea author. Mr Bailey was constantly at loggerheads with his brother clergymen, but their differences were likely to have been forgotten with that gentleman's departure »for England. But concurrently with his leave-taking certain statements affecting the rev. gentleman got about, and these have led to a newspaper warfare^ which has set half Christchurch by the ears, and furnished the scanrlalloving portion of that community with a fruitful topic of conversation. It appears that the Dean of Christchurch, in the course of a visitation to one of Mr Bailey's parishioners, informed her in the course of conversation that " Mr Bailey had a wife in England who was separated from him on account of his ill-treatment of her, he having been compelled for this reason to take the young lady home again. " Of course the publication of this statement led to the Dean receiving a communication from Mr Bailey, who called upon the very rev. gentleman to immediately withdraw it and express his regret " for circulating a piece of- hearsay of a nature extraordinarily wicked and malicious." This the Dean declined to do, and supports his statement by producing a letter signed by a Mr Mortlock, of Royston, England, father of the alleged Mrs Bailey, who substantiates it in every particular ; aud by a letter from Mr Spurgeon, wh© Bays that Mr Ebenezer Bailey was educated for the Baptist ministry at bis college, and was afterwards converted to the Anglican Church.", Mr Spurgeon added to his letter that Mr Bailey "musk be a prodigious factor in falsehood, if he denies having heen in my college." But that is just what he does do ; he denies emphatically that he ever set foot inside Mr Spurgeon'a college, and says he lost his wife a year before his ordination, in 1866., He threatens the Dean with an action for libel, and at this point this affair, which occupied the correspondence Jcolumn of the Christchurch papers for a week to the extent of nearly two columns daily, rests for the present.

Air Impobtant Discovert.— Under this heading we two days ago printed an, extract from a Nelson paper, referring to an alleged discovery of tin ia that Province.' Since then we have come across a letter in the, Grey River Argus, by a Mr Edmunds, who, referring to the same subject says' : — " I, am convinced that instead -of tin ore he would, perhaps, like myself, find it to be i auriferous magnetic . titanic iron ore, as my firm belief is tin ore does not exist, in the Province. < % labored, under that mistake once, until last year 1 took to Melbourne a few .pounds weight of the iron ore found on a granite formation near the coast,, and had it analysed by Mr Sydney Gibbons, one of the first analytical, chemists in Victoria, who informed me that it contained iron sand, magnetic, oxide, titanic acid, and gold, which' was also free from sulphur and phosphorus, . deriving therefrom an economical advantage through the small .quantity of sand, so that there is very little inert or useless .material to increase the expense of freight. The yield of gold ,he found to be lOoz. .16dwfc 20gr, I consider it cannot be worked or the gold extracted by smelting or by any chemical .'process whatever in New Zealand, unless there is a company formed to obtain machinery and all other necessary appliance8 f required for working the said ore. This I found hard to raiae as yet, and :otyexly failed ia.", . . ,