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Clutha Leader, Volume XXXV, Issue 2141, 4 August 1908, Page 7

with that of the unmarried, may be lessened, and that men with familiek , be especially considered, so that th| ] rearing of families may be looked forward to with less anxiety and I j parenthood encouraged." The question, he said, was of supreme mo- ' ment throughout the world, and the ] day bad arrived when matters other th„n wages, the employer and emiployee, and the general public, would ] .o be taivcn into consideration, ' and not merely employer and emi ployee as hitherto. Present immi-i ' gration met all requirements, bull . emmigrants were assisted who were! not entitled to the concession. The Gojvernment had done something in the | direction indicated by the motion.! i Homes for workers should be the ini-j > tiat step. He quoted statistics tq i show the disparity in the cost of I living between married and single! ' workers, and the disadvantage to the ; former as compared with the latter. > He urged that preference should be granted to married workers by em- , ploycrs. State labour agencies should be established similar to . those existing in Germany. He | thought, too, there was an unjust < tax upon every-day necessities which , could not be manufactured in the Dominion. Doctors should be employed and paid by the Government, < and should reguiarfy \ isit the schools and the houses of people, without ! waiting to be sent for until too late to save life. Parenthood carried with it a claim on the State. (Applause). ; The Hon. It. A. Loughnan seconded , the motion, and said Mr Barr's mo- , tion represented the true wishes of , the country. The debate was adjourned. i The Consolidated Statutes Bill was put through all its stages. Tne -\ew Zealand Society of Accountants Bill was read the third time and passed. The Council at 5.30 adjourned un--1,1 August IS). HOUSE OF iUfUUiESKNTATIVES. The House of Representatives met at 2.30 p.m. The amendments made in the incorporated Societies Bill by the Legislative Council Wv,re agreed to, with the exception of a couple of clauses which, in the Prime Minister's opinion, wouid tend to form a close guild. A conference was arranged to consider these. The Consolidated Statutes Enactment Bill, after the Prime Minister and others had eulogised Air Joillie. secretary of the Commission, was I put through all stages. I The House went into Committee of Supply for the consideration of the iw.inates. Class 1, Legislative Department, £30,071. Implying to members the Minister of Finance (.Sir J. U. Ward) said the Government would do what was possible to give clerical assistance to members dealing with comspondUeiice. The vote was passed unaltered. Class 11., Department of Minister of Finance, £57,588: The Minister explained, in replying to Air llerries, that the increase from £3500 for discount and stamp duty on remittances in London was due to the stringency of the London money market. The vote was passed. Class 111., Post and Telegraphs, £796,038: Replying to Air llerries the Premier stated tout the Government bud done a great deal for the improvement of the mail services. The sum of £20,000 had been offered for a service between Vancouver and New Zealand, but as the steamers could not come here the Government had been thrown back on the Suez service and had paid the Union Si camship Company and tho l-Jnodart Parker line a subsidy for an improved service connecting with the Suez service. This was unsatisfactory owing to the extra time involved, and the Government was anxijus to bring about a. fast mail service in conjunction with the British Government, but could not do more than assist in its creation. If such a S-Tuce could be brought about it would be cheap at the price. The House adjourned at 5.30 p.m. The House resumed at 7.30 p.m. Mr Fraser (Wai.utipu) indicated that one of the diiliculties of the I "All lied" service was that New Zealand insisted upon a 21-knots ser- ■ vice. ! The Prime Minister said that was the first suggestion, if the Government would be prepared to give £IOO,OOO subsidy for the Pacific service. This was too expensive. The Government had expressed its willingness to give £75,000 for an 18knot service of boats, with good passenger and refrigerating accommodation. In answer to several members who wished for more telephone construction in the back-blocks, the Prime Minister asked whether the expenditure of £155,000 and the erection of 2307 miles of wire last year was not doing what was asked for? How much did members -qiect the Government to spend? The Government had, he declared, done more for the back-blocks telephone service in the past live years than any country in I the world, and were constructing and extending as quickly as possible. He protested at the incessant demands i for greater facilities at an ever-in- ] I creasing cost. If every demand coming along were conceded it would ' not be long before the rates would have to be put up again. The vote passed unaltered. On the Industries and Commerce and Tourist and Health Resorts Doj partments: £71,289, several members , complained that the Government and ' Dominion were not getting anything like value from the Trade Commissioner at a salary of £-150'. The whole Department was antiquated and useless, and ttie money spent on it was wasted. The Prime Minister justified the appointment, and argued that the trade representative had done valuable work. Mr Massey said the Department, not Mr Gow, was at fault. It was absurd to send a Trade Commissioner to the East when we had no 'di- . rect communication^

In the House after midnight, a discussion took place on the Tourist Department. Tho Premier justified it# operations last year. The Department had spent I £49,000 and returned £20,000, besides | which he calculated the tourists spent nearly half a million in the country. The vote was passed unaltered.. The Old Age Pensions vote of £7772 was passed, and the House rose at 1.55 a.m. QUESTION OF ORTHODOXY. REV. J. GIBSON SMITH'S BOOK. It is understood that the Rev. J. Gibson Smith's book "The Christ of the Cross," in which he propounds a somewhat novel theory of the Atonement, has not appealed to some of his fellow Presbyterians, who regard the new theology as unorthodox, it is possible that the question whether Mr Smith's arguments are consistent with Presbyterian teaching may be referred to the General Assembly. HOW THE BOOK WAS WKITTEN Mr Smith explained to a crowded congregation as St. Andrew's Church , how he cam 3to -write the book. Ho stated that from Press notices and , other sources he had gathered that the positions maintained by him m the .oiumo iiad occasioned considerable disquietude amongst Christian people, for whom personally lie had the deepest respect and honor. In relating tne iuier experiences by which he was lead to write the book, Mr Smith said that iie was born and bred in the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland. There was much in the religious teaching to which he listened that seemed strange • and terriblv dark, but there was also so much light, that before he went up l.v) the University lie determined, rather in spite of than because of the wishes ol" his Hither tu become a minister of the Church. As a student ,ii ihe University lie commenced to Israeli in country eongicgations, and : !;,. also read omniverously. \ •■SOMETHING WKO-NG SOME- ; WHERE."' j "As inv mind went on expanding and ■ inv knowledge of the religious life of llie community was increased, 1 began gradually'to he imp l ' l '* B '' l ' with the laet 'that something was wrong somewhere. What that something was I could not tell—whether within myself or in the forms in which the popular religious belief was impressed, it was impossible for me to determine. One •Jong only was 1 sure of. Something was "wrong, and I was very miserable. I was conscious of an increasing aridity and barrenness of soul, i felt that I hail nothing much worth telling to any man, for 1 had litttle jov in my own life." Two years passed, after which Mr experiences as a missionary among ihe poverty, qualor, and vice J of Dundee slums made him Ivel "as never before how utterly ami hope-iesL-ly inadequate was any such message as i'could deliver to those poor wretched -lavers of our modern social system." Me began to entertain serious thoughts of giving up the ministry altogether, tin:'! rli in. could not cease to believe in (hid. But one day light dawned upon tile darkness. EL-'EECL' OF A \JSION. "i was sifting at my desk writing lo a friend, iviieu suddenly it seemed as though tne little room were tilled with light, inexpressibly soft and beautiful. 1 knew perfectly well that there was no real light there, yet 1 found myself looking up to the roof as if to trace its source. it seemed as though a beam of tiiis spiritual light pierced straight into my heart and struck upon something there which immediately glowetl into a similar light, and began to show full beams of s.lining, dazzling radiance. At the same time, though no words were .-.poken, this meaning was revealed to my soul, just as though it had been i uttered in actual words. 'God loves you tor the Christ within you.' " InI". liable, heavenly love flowed in upon ids soul; and more, than satisfied its hunger. "And with tho love itself ■ ■ame also the truth about love. There ,va> a message to my understanding as well as to my heart. . . That spiritual world wnioli formerly had seemed almost a chaos of perplexities was revealed to me as a world of holy and oeautiful law, in which nothing happened by chance, or without reason, and with a quite inexpressible joy L saw ail the dark things grow plain and clear, and testily to the reasonableness ■n i!ie truth of Cod." The thought 'loit "love can only love that which is iriily lovable" seemed to Solve a ihousand perplexities. NEW ZEALAND MINI.STHY. Within six months of this experience .\lr Smith came to Dunedin, and commenced there, 21 years ago, his New Zealand ministry. His chief business throughout all those years had been to clearly deiine in his own mind, and to find a language in which he could express intelligibly to others the truth which he had seen in the spirit so long ago in Edinburgh. His book represented me clearest and most intelligible expression of the truth to which he had, so far, been able to attain. He adit) it fed that his personal experience did not give him any right to override the scriptures, but claimed that it gave him a standard by which, to judge the traditional interpretations which had been put upon the Scriptures by theolologians in days gone by. After his vision it occurred to him that thefe was a good deal which the Church had accepted as scriptural which was not really so. As regards the Atonement theory, ho came tj see '"that the traditional idea that God demanded a penalty beforo He could forgive, could not bo held without detracting from the freene.ss and graeiousness of God's forgiveness. . . I came to see that that awful picture of God the Father shooting forth tho ) ; glitnings of His I wrath upon the head of His innocent Son, which, used to fill my youthful soul with a horror of great darkness, was not a picture which corM claim for itself the saiicti.ni of the Scriptures.',' He had either to declare in his book the true meaning of the Atonement as ho believed it had been revealed to i him, or else, lose his own soul. "1 be- ■ lieve that I have given in this book the very best that 1 had to give to the [ Church, it may be that the gift will - he rejected. I cannot tell. God only [ knows the future. It may be that the , Presbyterian Church of New Zealand [ will say to me that it cannot accept iny statement of the meaning of tne Savior's work, and if the Church should say so, there will be no course open to me but to seek some other medium for 1 the conveyance of the truth as it appears to me than the medium of a Presbyteiian pulpit." The Presbyterian ■ Church was very dear to him, but it 5 was more important that he should be able to say with the Apostle Paul, "I • have not been disobedient to the 'heavenly vision."-r- < The Dominion.'