DELETED FROM PLAN.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIV, Issue 1075, 23 July 1924, Page 5

DELETED FROM PLAN.

METHODIST LOCAL PREACHER Per Press Association. CHRISTCHURCH July 19. Mr Ilenry Robert Wilkinson has had his name deleted from the circuit plan by tho WooLton Methodist local preachers as_ the result of indiscretion and harmful publicity of his allairs with a widow, not on account of any moral wrong. A short time ago Mr Wilkinson defended an action against a widow, Maud Eva Noble, who claimed £SO damages for assault. ’ Judgment was given for Mr Wilkinson. He had been introduced to the woman through a matrimonial advertisement: Last week he received a letter asking him to attend a meeting of the Woolston local preachers so that his position might fie considered in How of the Court proceedings, lie asked the meeting to formulate a charge against him, saying that apart from the indiscretion of being introduced to the woman there was not a word or act of his not consistent with the character of a gentleman and a Christian. He had faced the publicity and taken his stand in defence of a principle. He refused to make a compromise. He had done it knowing the unpleasantness that it would bring to him. The stand taken by the meeting was that, apart altogether from the right or wrong of the case, it was inadvisable that Mr Wilkinson’s name should bo associated with the spiritual side of the work on account of the impression conveyed to tho public and the comment which had been made. Tho meeting strongly urged Mr Wilkinson to withdraw his name from the circuit plan, but ho declined to do so. Tho Rev. Mr Williams said the meeting did not imply that Mr Wilkinson had done anything morally wrong, but he had been indiscreet, and therefore it would do harm to the work of the church. A request was made that Mr Wilkinson should leave the meeting, but he refused to do so. and stayed to listen to a motion, being passed that his namo should be deleted from the circuit plan.