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Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 6265, 29 September 1891, Page 2

Foe the instruction and edification of the members of the Diocesan Synod, now in session assembled, we publish in another column an article from a Scotch contemporary, entiled, " A New Way of Paying Church Debts." The words of the article onght to sink into the hearts and rainc!s of our readers. There are few churches in New Zealand that are not head over heels in debt, and the ancient methods of extracting money from congregations are very stale and rarely satisfactory. The bazaar, with its stalls of fancy rubbish, baby linen, and suspicious pastry, has long ceased to be the one bright spot in a universe of sombre sin. It had at last to be enlivened with a touch of vice, and the dice-box, the lucky-bag, and the shake-in-the-hat, served for a time to relieve the monotony of the persistent efforts of enticing mendicants to extract five shillings for sixpenceworth of goods. But even the vicious courses into which church bazaars fell, in time, palled on the senses of those who preferred the real thing to the sham, and, when they ceased to attract, sound churchmen doubted their legitimacy. At many bazaars, while open barefaced swindling is considered the fair and square thing, the lottery has been suppressed, but in order that profit and pleasure may he the lesult, a latitude is permitted that is shocking to the moral sense of the average tradesman. The bazaar, in fact, has fallen on evil days, and the suggestion of a commercial traveller to our Presbyterian friends in Auld Reekie comes at the nick of time. When a minister has the courage to say that he should feel more assured of his income if his church walls were utilised as advertising hoardings, we may be Bure that the days of bazaars are "over. They are played out; and henceforth we must not be surprised if the virtues of Beecham's Pills and Pear's Soap take the place of Scriptural quotations in our churches.