NOT UNDERSTOOD.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLII, Issue XLII, 22 April 1907, Page 2

NOT UNDERSTOOD.

To the Editor. Sir, — I have no desire to provoke a controversy about matters which, luckily, do not materially affect us here in this singularly favoured land of ours, and especially at a time when I know your columns are fully taxed. But "E.H." is in error in saying that I "condemn" the popular preacher of the City Temple. It is not my business to either condemn or "judge any man. He is a product of social conditions, and I have nothing to withdraw from my estimate contained in my last note. At the same time I am entitled to my opinions : I say, I can't understand him — and even "E.H." admits that he cannot explain one of his short and characteristic utterances within the limits of an ordinary letter. I What is the use of trying? I attended the City Temple on several occasions, and came away with a feeling of cloudy oppression — not because of the preacher's brilliant personality — but because I deemed his to be a withered message. Now just fancy telling a horde of hungry clerks — who, to use his own words, "were there in their scores — and probably in their hundreds" — that it was "God's will that they should drive pens — and add figures for 12 or 14 hours a day." And to back up this statement with philosophical arguments delivered in the crisp and clasical English of which he is snch a perfect master. Better laws, I should think, were required. Why shunt the responsibility on to the Almighty? I tried to sec something beneath the social surface whilst at Home, and I saw a ghastly sea of human misery on every hand, of which no colonial has even the faintest conception. "Raise the workers to Mr Campbell's altitude" ! Why. at their present rate of progress it will take fully 10,000 years to do that! All that Mr'Campbell said about the workers may have been perfectly correct. I think it was. But he was not the richt man to say it. Ancl. considering their environment, it surprised me that they were not a great deal worse. Yours, etc., R.S.