PREACHER AND WIDOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LV, Issue 171, 21 July 1924, Page 7

PREACHER AND WIDOW.

SEQUEL TO COURT CASE. '■ NAME DELETED FROM CIRCUIT. <By Telegraph.—Own Corresponded.) jj CHRISTCHURCH, this day. Mr. Henry Robert Wilkinson hae had his name deleted from the circuit plan by the Wooleton Methodist local preachers as the result of indiscretion and harmful publicity of his affairs with a widow, not on account of any moral wrong. A short time ago Mr. Wilkinson defended an action against a widow, Maud Eva Noble, who claimed £50 damages for assault. Judgment was given , for Mr. Wilkinson. He had been introduced to the woman through a matrimonial advertisement. Last week he received a letter asking him to attend a meeting of the Woolston local preachers so that his position might bo considered in -view of the Court proceedings. He asked the meeting toformulate a charge agaipst him, saying that apart from the indiscretion of being introduced to the woman, there was not a word or act of his-not consistent with the character of a gentleman and a Christian. He had faced the publicity and taken his stand in defence of a principle. He refused, to make a compromise. He had done it knowing the unpleasantness that it would bring to him. The stand itaken by the meeting was that, apart altogether from the right or wrong of the case, it was inadvisable that Mr. Wilkinson's name should be associated with the spiritual side of the work on account of the impression conveyed to the public and the comment; which had been made. . The meeting strongly urged Mr. Wilkinson to withdraw his name from the circuit plan, but he declined to do so. The Rev. Mr. Williams said the meeting did not imply that Mr. Wilkinson had done anything morally wrong, but he had been indiscreet, and therefore it would do harm to Che work of the churcln A request was made that Mr. Wilkinson should leave the meeting, but lie refused to do so, and stayed to listen to a motion being passed that his name should be deleted from the circuit plan.