CORRESPONDENCE.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIV, Issue 246, 28 October 1879, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

To tue Editor of thk "Evening Mail." Sir— l observe a letter in your issue of the £7th instant signed "A. B. Suter, Bishop," and, despite the unquestioning revereuce with which some of your readers, no doubt, may receive the ipse dixit of so high an ecclesias tical authority, I deem it my duty to ask of your courtesy space for a few lines of reply to your Right Reverend correspondent's criticism. Bishop Suter commences his remarks by informing your readers tbat be had just enjoined upon bis congregation " the duty of engaging as Christians iv an honest aod useful trade or occupation;" this piece of information he immediately follows up with a sneer at haviog to pay a shilling to hear my lecture, and the statement that at his church his people contributed to or withheld from the collections just as Ihey pleased. Touching the opening remark I would suggest that if all Christians, high and low, from bishops to the humblest laymen, followed this advice, and engaged only in honest and useful occupations, it would be so much better for the credit of Christianity and the interests of the world at large. In respect to the shilling admission to my lecture, contrasted in terms of delicate sophistry with the large liberality exercised in the Bishop's own church collections, I beg to say that the ody difference I can discover is, flrst, tbat I depend for my expenses upon the modest fee taken at the door, whilst tbe Bishop's revenue is amply ensured to him wiihout troubling himself about collections, also, I may add that I, as the representative of a religion tbat has no endowments or organized financial system, am obliged to take my pay as I go, whilst Christian ministers take theirs quarterly, or annually, as the case may be. In both instances, I believe, the compensation is money, and, in both, the money thus bestowed is collected from those who deem they obtain value received for what they give. It is quite possible tbat if tbe large liberality which allows Christian congregations to give or withhold their contributions at pleasure were to affect the minister's annual stipend, even those disinterested Christian gentlemen would not be found travelling the wide world over to give their gospel " without money an 1 without price." Christian ministers, like spiritual lecturers, must live, and whether they be paid by a few shillings at tbe door, or by many pounds in the palatial residences of Episcopacy, paid they are, that is, unless they cau And some honest and useful employment befitting their Christian character outside of ecclesiastical " livings." Bishop Suter's next remark Js that he should " not like to exchange the' Church for the Theatre, there is something after all," he adds, "in the genius 10vi.." If this gentleman becomes so sensitive on the nature of the locality in which he conducts his servicea, how would he like to exchange the luxurious churches of the 19th century for the gloomy caves and doleful catacombs wherein the earliest of his Master's followers were often content to celebrate the services of their church? Judging from Bishop Suter s remarks, the taste of 1 9th century ecclesiastics would scarcely have endured the jrenius loci of such Apostolic Church servicea Were I myself a Christian, it seems to me I should be the last to murmur against the scene in wbich I jgas called upon to exercise my sacred function, convinced tbat, if the purpose did not hallow the place, the place would never hallow the purpose. In the following five or six paragraphs my right reverend critic is at considerable pains to impress his readers with tbe idea that my prayer, no less than the manner and matter of my entire address, was nothing more than "a triumph of stage declamation." I have not the slightest interest in knowing what Bishop Suter'a opinion of me may be, but

when he volunteers a criticism, which, stripped of the sophistical blandishments of expression, and reduced to analytical meaning, simply affirms tbat I am acting a part, or, in other words, am a studied hypocrite, I hrmly protest against an interpretation which involves on his part a lack of that charity which forms the very essence of the religion he professes, and in return for bis uncalled for and unjust insinuations I cannot do better than to admonish him to put in practice the charge of his Master— " Judge not lest ye be judged." That I may use much gesticulation in my addresses and call in aid of my words all the powers of which I am possessed, I shame not to acknowledge, 'that those powers are somewhat at variance with the ordinary methods of pulpit routine oratory, the world has already discovered, but to one so fearfolly in earnest as myself— to one who never approaches the multitudes I have addressed in many lands, and during many years, without a deep and almost awful sense of my responsibility— methods, manners, and Studied forms ate all forgotten. I never consider for one instant t_fe foira in which ideas are to he clothed; I receive them from the source of all ideas, and give them only as the promptings of my heart's deep devotion to the truths I utter may move me, and thus I am happily too much in earnest to remember that sneering critics and interested foes are lying in wait to distort the manner, if not the matter, of my utterances With the exception of a long tirade of criticisms carried forward in the above described external spirit, Bishop Suter's flock havenothing to gain by his review of me, save his assurance that "the spirits" had revealed nothing to him through my instrumentality wbi. h had not been " written in the Bible and disclosed iv the Ist and 2nd Epistle of Corinthians long ago." If this gentleman knew a little more of the genius of Spiritualism thau he could learn in one address, and had studied faithfully the phases of a movement whose revealnients have occupied many of the noblest minds of the age, during an entire half century, he would know that it is because Bible testimony was given so very 10-.g ago that a fresh living revelation is called for today; because Christian Ministers are ao perpetually referring their congregations to the "long ago." to miracles not even proved in their own time, much less in ours, that Atheism has robbed Christianity of a large following of the world's most learned and scientific minds, and left to modern Spiritualism the task of proving tbose religions truths which the Bible asserts and the Church reaffirms without any proof. Finally Bishop Suter declares he went " to hear and receive more light and he did not catch a gleam." But what of that ? Is he not a Christian Bishop ? and as such, has he not already all tbe light that ever did, or can, exist in heaven or on earth? According to his belief, did not God come down from heaven in person, expressly to enlighten him ? and having this divine and almighty source of light at command, who could expect to receive more light from one who only professes to communicate with the spirits of frail mortals who have not talked with God in person, and who deem it blasphemy to believe that fiDite beiogß have ever done so. The flickering rays of Spiritualism never claim as their source the central sun of existence; never teach that the Infinite being was born, lived, and died, as a finite creature, or that the Creator of the Universe came down from His seat of government to be dove to death at the hands of his own creatures ! In short, my mission is to those that are sick, not to those that are whole, aud since, despite the many centuries during which Christianity haa killed ofl the thousands it could not convert, more thousands still remain unconverted. " infidels " who, according to Bishop Suter's faith, are doomed to eternal perdition for their uubelief, let him not grudge me .he pleasing task of opening up to them a path to heaven and immortality, even though tbat path may be a bye road, not leading tbrough Christian paddocks, or ecclesiastical preserves Poacher as I may be upon that divinely philosophic system which so delicately reconciles the eternal things with temporal interests, and fur Dishes passports to the heavenly kingdom in strict conformity with the duty of " ministering to the necessities of the saints " ou earth, I would still ask my Right Reverend critic to think of me in the spirit of that plea for poor outsiders, which fell so sweetly from the lips of his Lord and Master, when he bid his disciples remember that— *■■*• he that is not against us is on our side." Bishop Suter, in one part ef bis pastoral review, affirms that I am indebted for my "glowing and eloquent descriptions " to the Bible, far more than I admit or am aware of. To the last part of this sentence I subscribe most heartily, being ap to this time entirely unconscious of any such indebtedness. Presuming, however, that Biblical literature is more in accordance with Bishop Suter's genius than mine I cannot conclude better than in the words of that Apostolic charge to which all parties must subscribe, namely, « Let all bitterness and wrath and aDger, and clamour, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice; and be ye kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you."— l am, &c , Emma HAHDmoB Bbittbn.