CLERICALISM AND CRUELTY TO ANIMALS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIV, Issue 8065, 5 October 1887, Page 3

CLERICALISM AND CRUELTY TO ANIMALS.

TO THIS I DITOR. Sir,ln the Edinburgh Review of April the book called the " The Service of Man," by James Cotter Morrison, is reviewed and controverted. Mr. Morison has undertaken tj show that the system of Christian doctrine and organisation is effete and inadequate. The reviewer, who champions (Jariitianity, does, however, make the following grave presentment among others :— " It might be urged that Christian teachers have never taken up the cause of the animal world, and have been in this respect below the level of the highest thought of the age. When have we heard from the pulpit what we have certainly read in the magazines — a protest against fashionable apart," &c. Ttiis censure of the clerical profession is perhaps rather too sweeping; but while there are worthy exceptions, and while there are not a few places in British Christendom wherein societies for the pre-, vention of cruelty to animals are faithfully and heartily supported by ministers of religion, there are others, probably more numerous, in which this grievous and shameful charge is fully applicable. Auckland, perhaps, in this respect stands at the head. It has been notioed in your columns that at the last annual meeting of the Auckland .Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals not a single minister of a congregation in the city of Auckland or its suburbs was present, not a single communication from any of the white>chokered gentry was presented. A revised edition of the Bible is badly wanted, for that musty old record abounds with forcible and beautiful indications of a contrary sentiment.—l am, &0., ('MAN as,