Anonymous Attack
In the columns of the Olago" daily"Ttfnes the Rev. Wni. Hewitson (Presbyterian) has been reading .the Riot'"Act. to one ' Carpus ' (a clergyman, apparently)," who has lately been making anonymous attacks upon a pastor that has recently been a good deal in the public- eye. With the subject and the merits of the controversy wo have no concern—it is a domestic affair of the Presbyterian Church in New Zealand, and there we leave it. But the anonymous assailant is everybody's concern. None in all the land have such painful and" frequent and free experience a^ Catholics have of his coward blows. And the Rev. Mr. Hewitson's flagellation- of. the \arlet is a joy for-ever. Jfereare a few extracts from his latest letter that deserve a place ."n the literature of this baleful subject :—: — 'The law provides statutes of limitations, but there is no limitation to the vengeance with which some men pay. Lapse of time, honorable service to the, community, advancing age not «yen the grave is'sufficieht-'tp protect from the unrelenting zeal with which some men - take "vengeance. .- .' The subject referred to has been buried' for 20 years. ' What of that? The |onger buried, ,the more'-ptyuanti-.' As " Carpus " goes to and fro into the homes of ministers "and:elders, -instructing them-in the distinction courage", and treachery,. I wonder if he-will "still wear the mask—this time of hjs private personality!" Is it v too much to expect thathe will' preface his "disquisitions on-honor-"-able conduct and orthodox, teaching with the announcement: 4I: am Carpus,' the. man who mutilated the documents, fired at a brother minister's character from behind a hedge,' and disinterred a trouble that Wad been buried for 20 years?" J-. have" often felt indignant at the way in- which public men and classed of men—members of Parliament, city councillors, ministers, and others—have been attacked from behind'-a: pseudonym. Ido not . object to open attack on the wcong-doing of public .men —quite the reverse; but I am^persuade'd-'that anonymity in attack runs - readily into malicious and irresponsible writing. I wish to do - what I can to-make the tempei of'our Church intolerant of a man who uses a mask to attack another's character, and to give a misleading representation of an opponent's opinions. This has , been my.chief concern in willing at thip time.'
The persecuting--pagan Roman Emperor Trajan fed the Christians to wild beasts, by whose teeth, they - were groundnoble wheat of God.—and had-them-slowly, roasted to death in tye Coliseum—beautiful glow-worms of ■ the Most. High ! He ordered torture and death , upon a large .scale, but even his pagan heart refused to tolerate the slings.and arrows of the anonymous accuser. He dcew the -line there. In our own time, ' literary roughs ' is the epithet flung by Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, the genial Poet of the Breakfast Table, at the illconditioned masked men who hurl anonymous accusations at people through the columns of the newspaper. press orjhe pages of the lampoon. 'It is . understood in good society,' says Dr. Maurice Francis Egan, ' that a man "who writes a letter which he is afraid to sign with hist own- name, would lie or steal. And 1 believe he would. 1 Disraeli had "also a fine contempt for anonymous assailants whose lucubrations appear so often in the daily press. 'An anonymous writer;'" said he in his denunciation of the ' Globe ' in 1 1836, ' should at' least' display power ; but we can only view with contemptuous levity the' mischievous varlet who pelts us with mud as we are riding along; and-then hides behind a dust-bin.' ' Anonymity," said Dr. Parker, of the City Temple (London), a few years ago, ' is not modesty, though it may easily be either impudence or cowardice.' And even* that gentle soul, Cardinal Manning, granted .that it is extremely difficult for a man to avoid saying under a mask of anonymity what lie would not say with an open face. • •
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZT19080813.2.9.7
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New Zealand Tablet, 13 August 1908, Page 9
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644Anonymous Attack New Zealand Tablet, 13 August 1908, Page 9
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