REV. JAMES BUTLER, AUCKLAND EXAMINER, AND CANTERBURY STANDARD.

Auckland Examiner, Volume IV, Issue 277, 30 June 1860, Page 3

REV. JAMES BUTLER, AUCKLAND EXAMINER, AND CANTERBURY STANDARD.

(Per favor of Crnterbury Standard)) Sir.—You are fortunate n the consciouness of having long established a fair name as a zealous missionary and devout Christian. Albuon vino non bisogna frasca ; and hence probably that magnanimous indifference to admiration which renderedyour publication in last week’s so perfectly devoid of matterand tone calculated to excite that sentiment. If I were to enter on a polemic..l discussion with the Hildebrand class of haughty ecclesiastics, I should, as a matter of course, expect a full torrent of abuse, but the incongruity is harshly striking, when the Same style of argument is used by a prominent and leading follower of the meek and amiable Wesley. Your virtues had been heralded here before your arrival by ample eulogies from the Well ngton'press, which is seldom scrupulous in destroying the characters of many other good men. The strangeness of this circumstance is partly explained by your evident partiality to the peculiar style of courtesy adopted by that energetic section of the fourth estate—-a congeniality naturally apt to engender a reciprocity of approbation In this Province, however, we are slow in appreciating, the merits of that style. For instance,-if \we doubt a man’s statement we merely suggest the possibility of his having been mistaken, instead of honestly like yourself, telling him flatly that we don’t believe a word he says, and pronounce him at once a deliberate promulgator of falsehood, until he produce proofs of his assertions. You unhesitatingly . characterise the alleged misconduct of some missionaries during the first war as “baseless scandal.’’ Yo'u may possess some intuitive means of ascertaining facts, beyond the, general average of mortals; if so it is to be regretted that you did not apply those extraord’nrry means to convince, Col. Hulme, Col. Despard, Sir George Grey, most of the officers engaged in that war; and the majority of sett’ers et the Bay of Llands, not connected with missions, who ha\e always believed the scandal even after the publication of the anonymous pamphlet in defence of the accused, in 1847. Although I am in possession of the chief statements and arguments then advanced on both sides, yet it is not my object to revive a controversy that can never be satisfactorily settled, especially as 1 never affirm ed a dogmatic opinion on the subject, neither have I any right to intrude my private convictions on those who entertain different views. I only mentioned circumstances patent to the whole Colony, as the cause of the existing jealousy of missionary interference in the present disturbances, so strongly manifested by the Europeans of the Northern Island As to your sneer at my condescension in allowing some missionaries to be exemplary Christians, &c., it does not; fortunately, affect me in any manner, for sneers and mockery of this nature possess the proverbial faculty of curses—returntngito the piver r You also question if I would “ find one of them willing t« accept from me a personal compliment while I traduce them as a class.” In regard to their willingness to, accept compliments, I feel very indifferent, having neither an object nor the inclination to flatter them, nor the desire to with, hold censure where and when deserved. Your charge of my traducing them as a class, however, is unjust and erroneous. The tenor of the whole article you censure is a defence of the missionaries as a class; audit is on that very ground that it animadverts on the course of indiscriminate repro batian adopted by the Auckland Examiner. If you take the tiouble to re-peruse the article in question, in a calmer frame of mind, I presume you will readily perceive your mistake. Next, however, comes the pith of your attack : —“ Unless you are prepared to .give the name of the mission ary whoiN you saw dispensing the holy sacrament of the Lord’s Supper to a hoary polygamist chief and to his four wives at the same table, I shall consider you guilty of a gross llble on a respectable body of Christian ministers.” If your own letter furnishes a fair specimen of your usual manner of arriving at conclusions, and awarding judgment, it renders me less anxious about what you Hiay “ considei” me, than I should otherwise be in regard to the opinion of any respectable clergymin. Nor do I consider myself in any manner bound “to give the name” at your command, and mus l therefore risk the terrifying alternative, when I can perceive impossible benefit that might accrue ffom my ac

quiescence. I repeat the fact as stated in my nrti cle ; and there were other “strange things’’connected; with the circumstance, tending to render i still more objectionable. I asked, afterwards, another clergyman, who had witnessed the proceedings, to remonstrate with the missionary. The clergyman was as much grieved as I was to witness this abuse of a solemn ordinance, but declined to remonstrate with an older clergyman than himself. J do not feel it necessary to be more explicit, being convinced that all who know me are aware that I am incapable of uttering or writing an intentional or deliberate falsehood. Again, how can the censuring of a single act of one man become a libel on the whole profession ? The very fact of your own indignant denial of my truth in making the state ment shows your reprobation of the missionary’s act, and I take it for granted that rpost of your reverend brethren would be equally earnest in its condemnation ; therefore the ” respectable body ” are not affected, either by the circumstance itself or my relation thereof. Your poetic idea that my “ r miniscences axe from dreamland,” has a reference perhaps to the opinions of some philosophers that our whole existence is a drea’m, and there is nothing real or tangible, that there is neither earth, sun, moon, nor firmament, and man is only a vague idea —a delusion from the mystic visions of universal chaos. If such is tbe case, I must admit that the “reminiscences” had no more positive proofs of occurrence than matter has of existence ; they both present to me an equal amount of testimony. You are rather modest in not “attempting to prove that ever}’ missionary is necessarily a paragon of holiness,” for the attempt would be fully consistent with your maintenance of the immaculateness of a single individual, of whose identity with- the one you defend you can form, nt the best, only a vague supposition. If I take the missionaries, seriatim, as subjects of attack, I have not the least doubt that you will become their individual champion, and thus, in the end, endeavour to prove every ona of them the special u paragon.” In your concluding sentence your logic is considerably at fault in applying to my own condemnation my remarks on the Examiner. That paper attacked the “ whole clas-’, ” whereas my remarks referred to only a very limited section. Let us see how your argument will look in the form of a syllogism :— Major— The Examiner condemns the whole. The Standard defends the whole in tiie aggregate, but condemns a small part of the whole. Minor— The Standard censures the Examiner for the indiscriminate censure of the whole; Ergo— The Standard', in that censure, pronounces its own condemnation 1 If the “ confidence of readers in my truthfulness be forfeited” by so loose a system of argumentation as the foregoing, it would hardly be worth while to court its continuance. That confidence, however, is not so easily annihilated as to-be ready, at the beck of a single individual, however venerable his position or brilliant his talents, to vanish at an authoritative dictum, unsupported' by moderation, plausible reason, or sound argument. l am, Sir, Yours, &o. Late Editor Ci Si