MATTHEW BURNETT.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume VIII, Issue 2296, 15 May 1886, Page 1 (Supplement)

MATTHEW BURNETT.

We, N.Z. Methodist, ventured to predict that our zealous, warm hearted friend, Mr Matthew Burnett, would he in his element when he crossed over to the Wnst Coast, and our prediction has been fully justified by the reported results, We do not refer now to the watery element represented by the rain which has descended with a constancy and a copiousness hitherto without a parallel in our friend's experience. • We refer to the social element of the Coast, which has demonstrated its unquenchable enthusiasm by securing for Mr Burnett, in spite of an almost incessant downpour of rain, large and successful meetings. Scarcely anywhere, we should say, in bo short a time, has Mr Burnett made such a large number of converts to the pledge of total abstinence. And the variety of tho converts is as striking as their number, Mr Burnett "has secured as trophies of bMh isiu& of

Parliament; about half a dozen ministers; and over two thousand of the rank and file, including a publican and all the. members of his family. He has had as Chairmen at his meetings two of the West Coast members, who, "in another pltce" have been most hostile to all legislation in the interests of Temperance, and both of whom, we believe, are pron:ineutly associated with the liquor traffic. The w»y in which Mr Burnett gels around such men is oneof the curiosities of social science; and, as Mr Burnett

argues, if "you can once get them in the chair at a Temperance meeting, it does them no harm to listen to a good straight talk on ut subject concerning which, as a rule, they are wonderfully ill informed." We regret to Bud that Mr Burnett has had to -prosecute his wore in groat pain, owing to the wound iu his leg. His lectures for the most part have been delivered sitting down. Just fancy Matthew Burnett doing ''Yankeeßill" or "the old doctor," cooped U|i in a chair and bis leg on a footstool I- It is almost like Hamlet with the part of Hamlet left out. Wo can assure our. West Coast friends that they have not yet seen and heard Mr Burnett in his glory; and wo trust that they may yet have the opportunity of listeningtd him when he will not have to apologise in the fashion teported uf a temporarily disabled pulpiteer: "We must dispells'), on this oeoasiou, with our usual action."