PASTOR BIRCH'S VAGARIES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVIII, Issue 8540, 14 April 1891, Page 3

PASTOR BIRCH'S VAGARIES.

Sir, —l have read with interest yonr report of Pastor Birch's services yesterday. The account will be perused with amusement and contempt according to the different dispositions ot your readers. As an outsider, the proceedings of Mr. Birch's supporters seem to me most extraordinary. The reasons assigned for their course will not bear investigation. They are never tired of asserting that Mr. Birch has been badly treated. But, allowing for a few queer people among the Tabernacle congregation (and such people are to be found in every Church under the sun), what has Pastor Birch to complain of ? He found a handsome church, free of debt, a warm-hearted people who received him with open arms. What has he done for them From first to last his mission . in Auckland has been disastrous. He has scattered their congregation, ruined their Church funds, and sown a . crop of bitterness and dissension, which is already producing, a disastrous harvest. Who is to blame but himself ? Would any congregation in Auckland have tolerated similar proceedings-on the part of a pastor ? I emphatically say, No. Could anything be more ridi&lous,_as Mr. Varley remarked, than the exhibition of a man strutting about a platform in a towering passion at a so-called " holiness" meeting.? Charity would fain draw a veil over later pitiful performances. Pastor Birch excuses his want of tact and judgment by saying that he is more adapted for an evangelist than a regular pastor. Well, from the specimens we have seen in the colonies, the qualifications for an evangelist are not very great, so there may be some truth in his estimate of himself. It really seems as if every step the unfortunate man takes plunges him deeper into the mire r and that he cannot open his mouth in public without violating the principles, , I will not say of " holiness," but even of ordinary good feeling and taste. Witness the foolish remarks about ministers bowing down to wealthy people. Now, where is there a minister in Auckland who enjoys the benefits derived from wealth to the same extent Pastor Birch does ? I know many ministers in our city who are lodged poorly, live poorly, and dress poorly. Pastor Birch lives in a handsome house, surrounded by luxury, and drives in a luxurious carriage to his services. He is said to be liberal to the poor, but surely so commonplace a practice in the case of a wealthy minister does not call for any special commendation. .Of course, if Pastor Birch continues to hold services, the Tabernacle will, no doubt, suffer to. some extent. But if his followers desire him to do so, I would beg them to act in a manly and straightforward way. Don't let us have any sniffling about waiting " to know the mind of the Lord." Don't let all the mixed motives, many of them of a base and sordid kind, which influence their action, be dignified by a pretence of Divine guidance. It verges too closely on blasphemy. The whole thing lies in a nutshell. Pastor Birch has been a dismal failure, and the best atonement he can make for his errors, which I believe are more of head than of heart, is to quietly withdra vv and leave to some wiser man the task of building up the work he has so marred, and of uniting the flock he has so disastrously scattered.—l am, etc., ChkistiAjS. \ ' -