RESIGNS THE CHURCH.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1619, 10 December 1912, Page 3

RESIGNS THE CHURCH.

the reason given. "ASKED fOR BREAD AND WAS GIVEN A STONE." (By Telegraph.—Press Association.) Dargaville, December 9. Mr. J. C. Sutherland, Presbyterian missionary at Dargaville, is severing his connection, with the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand, giving tho following reasons:—Ten weeks ago he made formal application to be granted the full status of the ministry by ordination. The application was received and sustained by the Auckland Presbytery, and a coni- | mittee was elected to support it. At a • mestjii£_ of the General Assembly tlie j. appi.-uJoii was also supported by two of the most eminent living theologians ! ill Scotland, whoso classes Mr. Sutherland attended, and who knew him per- ■ sonally. Further, the application was ' supported by a local petition to the AuckJ land Presbytery, asking that Mr. Suther- : land be duly inducted to tho Northern . Wairoa charge. Notwithstanding all this, J and tho fact that ho had given tho New > Zealand Presbyterian Church between s . four and- five years' service as a home missionary, and which service had been 1 most successful, the finding of the Genj eral Assembly was: "That the status of a home mission.- > ary in full standing be granted Mr. [ Sutherland at once, and that liis apt plication for full status of the minisf try lie on the table for another year, to lis considered again at next Assembly." "This means," says Mr. Sutherland, I "tliat the position I have been filling for the past five years is having a belated ' recognition, and Uiat the ecclesiastical veto or what we might call clerical trade 3 unionism, has been applied to this, ill _ spite of the clamant need of the chnrchi for' men. I refuse to allow any applicaa tion of mine, so well supported, to lie oil the table of any society. My application must either be granted or it falls to the ground, and when I ask for bread I cannot .be satisfied when I-am given a 1 stone. The arbitrary action of the Pres- ' bytenau Church has thus forced me to send in my resignation." i