MINISTER QUITS

Greymouth Evening Star, 4 March 1926, Page 7

MINISTER QUITS

CLERGYMAN’S ALLEGATIONS. At a farewell service at Kyogle, New South Wales, recently, the Rev. Jas. Gillespie, who recently resigned from the local Presbyterian charge, referred to the fact that, because life had advocated better observance of the Sabbath Day, he had been made the subject of persecution from sporting bodies and portions of his own congregation. . Further tenure to the ministry was impossible. That afternoon, said Mr. Gillespie, after conducting a service at Wyangarie, vile epithets had been thrown at him. Some vandal had defiled his church building during the week. His horse had been hidden, and he had been personally assaulted. This would not prevent his continuing to preach the need for Sabbath observance, without which no nation could prosper. Mr. Gillespie denounced the Presbyterian method of appointing ministers. Some charges in the Richmond River district, he said, had been vacant for fifteen months. It was humiliating for clergymen to have this experience. He commended the Methodist system, which kept pulpits continuously filled. He said that he was a strong advocate for the union of the Presbyterian and Methodist Churches, which would make ministers’ work twice as effective in. country centres,, .where several ministers passed each, other going to the same sparsely-settled centres.