THE REV. T. J. WILLS AND ANGLICAN CLERGYMEN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVII, Issue 8284, 17 June 1890, Page 3

THE REV. T. J. WILLS AND ANGLICAN CLERGYMEN.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir,—ln a recent issue of your paper " Mercutio" delivers himself of very incorrect and misleading matter in reference to the temperance movement, and the motives actuating temperance workers. But I should have taken no notice of his statements had he not quoted a slightly inaccurate report of my remarks at the Temperance Conference," and built thereon a charge of "low motives" ascribed " to the clergymen." So far from attacking the clergymen of Auckland and ascribing " low motives " bo any one of them, my remarks were a protest against the " incessant attacks upon ministers " which bad given ma much pain since my arrival in Auckland. I had soon after I arrived in your city listened to very severe strictures from a public platform on the supposed proceedings of certain ministers of the Gospel ; in private conversation I had heard again and again what appeared to be unfair, un-Christian, and groundless complaints against ministers of various denominations ; and again, when I attended the Temperance Conference to hear an essay read and discussed, I waa condemned to listen to another public attack upon earnest and devoted Christian ministers. I had had no intention of taking any part in the conference—(l) because I was physically unfit, having just come out of the embrace of la grippe ; (2) because I was a stranger from the country, anxious to hear the views of Temperance workers iu. one of the large centres of the colony. I rose with feelings of intense indignation and defended the ministers generally as best I could under the circumstances. Possibly ib was done clumsily, but certainly a charge of " lew motives" against the clergy was the farthest from my, thoughts. In the course of mv remarks I admitted that the clergy of the" church to which I belong are not, as a body, fas favour of the total abstinence movement, but affirmed that they are no less in sympathy than the laity, and that in many parishes,, if the clergymen came out distinctly on total abstinence and prohibition lines, they would be unable to retain their position among their people. In mv mind there was not the ghost of a suspicion that the clergy were influenced by the sentiment of their people to conceal their own convictions, bub my point was that the laity, who are so ready to criticise ministers, are as a whole far from united in this work, and would themselves prove within the church an obstruction to the efforts of a total abstaining united clergy I am, etc., T. J. Wills.