A RECTOR RETURNS

Evening Star, Issue 20029, 21 November 1928, Page 9

A RECTOR RETURNS

MR HUTOHirWS WELCOME CALI 8H CHURCHWARDENS “I 60 WHERE I LIKB.t? The Rev. Franklin Isaac Hutchinson, who vanished from his parish, in July, arrived back in Doddinghurst a tew weeks ago. He landed from Canada at Liverpool on a Saturday morning and booked straight through to Loudon, going on to Liverpool street, where no caught a Romford train. Mr Hutchinson alighted before bo reached Brentwood, and finished ins journey by motor car. He drove up to tho shop of one of the churchwardens, Mr J. Beardwell, in a power! ui saloon car. There, was a crowd about the house as if waiting in expectation, and tho identity of Mr Hutchinson could be hidden no longer. “Why, it is tho rector!” one man exclaimed. He rushed with tho nens to a neighbouring inn, and very Boon the cai 1 was surrounded by villagers, some of whom tried to raise & cheer. Mr Hutchinson burned into a shop, shook hands with the churchwardens, and remained in conversation with them for some tinm Meanwhile a crowd gathered round tho little shop, and many eyes peered througti an opening in the curtain to catch a sight of the rector standing in tho candle light. Later Miss Thickett, the rector’s secretary, drove up in a car, which apparently was the one used by the rector. GOING TO SEE THE BISHOP. After several requests Mr Hutchinson consented to make a brief statement. “All I have to say is this,” ho said “ I have simply come as an act of courtesy to call upon the wardens of the parish church on my arrival back in England. I have had a letter from my bishop, received aboard tbo boat, and tho bishop is making an appointment for me to see him.” Asked whether it was his intention to attempt to mako any statement at tho church to-morrow, ho replied: “No lam leaving here to-night. That is all. I have to say.” Some time afterwards he drove away, presumably to London. There was a dramatic scene when Mr Hutchinson arrived at Liverpool. When ho was being interviewed in tho third class dining saloon a man, said to bo tho rector’s faithful butler, Herbert Straw, rushed to Mr Hutchinson and kissed him.

Mr Hutchinson said: “My bishop knows the whole position, and there is no mystery, except that wliich has been created by others. Why did I go away so hurriedly?” Speaking with some heat, he replied: “I am a British citizen, with full liberty to go away when 1 like, where I like, and how J. like.”

Asked whether it was true that ho was involved with money-lenders when ho left England, Mr Hutchinson said his affairs were being dealt with by ins legal advisor. “ What exactly ray position is I do not yet know. My financial affairs were certainly not my reason for leaving Doddinghurst. DOWN TO THE “ROOT OF THINGS.”

“ I had a line that a bankruptcy petition had been entered against me, but I have not the remotest idea who has entered it. It must bo that it has been done before they heard from my lawyers. “ I shall find out what it is all about, and I have no doubt that after consultation with my lawyers it will bo withdrawn. 1 have been away on holiday, the first I have had since i was ordained fourteen years ago. 1 went away a physical wreck, and I come back a new man. What 1 desire above all things is to be known as a man among men, and so in the last few weeks i have been getting out among my fel-low-men. P.eople are too apt to look upon a clergyman as neither a man nor a woman, but as something between them.

“ It is my keen desire, therefore, to get into vital contact with men’s lives, their interests, difficulties, and temptations, so to Canada I went, and there on the prairie I worked and associated with hardy toilers and got down to the root of things.”