NOT A PROPHET.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 202, 26 August 1937, Page 16

NOT A PROPHET.

MR. JARDINE'S DENIAL. U.S. LECTURE TOUR. STATEMENT REFUTED. (From Our Own Correspondent.) SAN FRANCISCO, July 28. With self-admitted "force and vehemence," unusual in the mouse-like little English parson who married the Duke of Windsor and WalHs Warfield, the Rev. R. Anderson Jardine, who has been touring the United States, denied in New York prophesying an attempt by former King Edward VIII. to regain the British Throne in the event something should "happen" to George VI. Irritated by dispatches allegedly quoting the "Poor Man's Parson" as assuming the role of a prophet, the clergyman issued a formal denial of the printed report. He said: "I deny with all the force and vehemence at my command the statement attributed to me while at Lake Placid. This statement, which appeared in the Press, was to the effect that I said the Duke of Windsor might make a 'bid' for the Throne of England should anything 'happen' to George VI. "Such a question has been put to me several times since my arrival in America, and each time I have stated my belief that the Duke of Windsor is too great a peacemaker to cause internal strife in the country he so much loves. It is a foolish thing to ask such a question of me, because I have no knowledge whatsoever of the future plans of His Royal Highness." Next day, after this denial, Mr. Jardine was in Baltimore expressing the belief that Edward is the man "to steer the nations toward the star of peace." With this tribute to the former King of England Mr. Jardine ended a lecture in which he had promised to "rip the lid off' the abdication of Edward for the love of Wallis Warfield. He said what really forced Edward to abdicate was an alliance between the Archbishop of Canterbury—whom he called an "ecclesiastical Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, whom he described as "grandmotherly." Mr. Jardine had an audience of 864, mostly middle-aged to elderly women. They reserved most of their conservative applause for his references to the Duchess, formerly Wallis Warfield' of Baltimore.