A Church Robbed.

Hastings Standard, Issue 390, 4 August 1897, Page 4

A Church Robbed.

The old Wesleyan Church, Balclutha, which at present is in course of being pulled down, was recently the scene of a daring attempt at robbery. About eleven o'clock the Rev. W. J. Elliott, who resides in the manse alongside the church, and who had not retired to rest, heard a loud tapping. Thinking it was a neighbor choppiug wood, the rev. gentleman did not get up to inquire into the matter, but quietly dropped off to sleep. In the morning, however, Mr M. Bernstone, who has bought the old building for the purpose of using the bricks in the erection of a dwelling-house, discovered that the foundation stone of the church had been tampered with by means of repeated blows with some instrument (probably an axe), and several bricks and pieces of masonry had been dislodged, but the midnight marauders then found that if they went any further they would bring a whole brick wall down about their ears, and they abandoned their attempt. It is now some twenty-seven years since the foundation stone of the old Wesleyau Church was laid. The ceremony was a very imposing one for a country town in those days, the local Freemasons turning out in strong force, and the stone was laid with Masonic rites. The next day Mr Bernstone set to work, along with workmen, and succeeded in unearthing the coveted prize which had been deposited underneath the stone." Lo, and behold ! it was only a broken bottle containing a couple of newspapers dated April, 1870, and a list of the members of the Clutha Masonic Lodge. The booty had 'been abstracted shortly after it was placed there—twenty-seven longyears ago—and all that was left for these latter-day excavators was a solitary threepenny-bit. We have been unable to ascertain the exact number or denomination of the coins deposited in the stone, but it is considered that one silver coin of each denomination then in circulation, with the addition of half-a-sovereign, was placed in the stone. The total sum would probably not exceed 30s. But as some of the coins then in use have since goae out of circulation — for instance, the fourpenny-piece—-they would now bring much more than their face value.—Free Press.