LECTURE BY THE REV. W. MORLEY.

Press, Volume XLVI, Issue 7253, 8 March 1889, Page 5

LECTURE BY THE REV. W. MORLEY.

A lecture, entitled " My Trip to England and What I Saw There," by the Rev. W. Morley, attracted a large number of people last night to the Durham street Wesleyan Church. The proceedings were opened with devotional exercises, after which Mr W. Harris took the chair, and made a few remarks by way of introduction. The Rev. Mr. Mokley, who was loudly applauded on rising, and also during the course of his address, went further than the title of his lecture indicated. He alluded to places oucside of England, and introduced a number of interesting little narratives which, with many amusing observations, seemed ;to make the lecture a pleasant one ]to listen to. After twenty-four years , i service in the Methodist Church in j New Zealand he obtained leave of absence for twelve months, and during that time he could safely say that he had travelled more than 30,000 miles by laud and sea, and in all sorts of conveyances, excepting the man carriages of Ceylon and a wheelbarrow. He saw human life in five countries on the European continent, made the acquaintance of the industries of England and her beauties; had visited the halls of Scotland and its chief places, Ireland, France, Florence and Switzerland, the field of Waterloo and Italy. The voyage was uneventful, and on board the boat there were the usual amusements which nowadays relieved the monotony of a long sea journey. Of all the places he must give the palm to Rio. Its harbor far exceeds in beauty that of Sydney or the Bay of Naples, and he endorsed fully the description which had appeared in the Prkss of the capital of Brazil. The year was a memorable one to him. It was, as Spurgeon called it, the " Year of the three B's." It was the tercentenary of the defeat of tire Spanish Armada, the bicentenary of the lauding of William of Orange, centenary of the death of the Old Pretender, the bicentenary of the death of John Bunyan, whose county he visited; aud a year of importance as regarded the various events which had happened, principal among which was the death of the two German Emperors. He had not stayed long in one place. He visited such towns as London, Liverpool, Birmingham, and Leeds, villages, seaside resorts, and places of great interest, aud gave a graphic description of the beauties of the woodlands. He noticed that the hills of Cumberland were being planted, and he came back to protest against the wholesale destruction of our timber forests. One of the things which struck him most was the power of the newspaper Press at Home, which was now one of the great educators of the people. He referred to the diiierent leading papers and their style of conduct, and also to the tactics pursued by the purely party journals, and then went on to speak of thegreat distinction among the classes and the masses. These things he noticed more especially because he had lived in a colony where JacK was as good as his master, and perhaps a little better, and where a man was valued for his manhood. The time, however, was coining when that unfortunate distinction, which he regretted to see, would cease. He told some amusing anecdotes concerning the methods of advertising, and the great art to which it has been brought. He regretted to see that political and party warfare was so keen in places where it ought not to be, such as households, municipal bodies, School Boards and so on; spoke of the Methodist Conference he had attended, and described its principal men, and said that after all he had come back with no longing, lingering looks towards England. For ie there was a great future yet, and its best days were still to come; but he was glad to come back to this laud where we had our future in our hands, could raise ourselves to a position, and In after years could see thousands aud tens of thousands of human beings even better off than they ever could be in the Britain of the North. (Loud applause.) The rev. gentleman was accorded a very hearty vote of thanks. During the evening the choir sang several anthems. _____________