AS OTHERS SEE US.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18548, 5 November 1923, Page 9

AS OTHERS SEE US.

VISITOR'S FACETIOUS STORY. ADVENTURE AT ROTORUA-CHURCH-GOING in DOMINION. An entertaining account of a visit paid to New Zealand some little time ago is given by " M.1." in the English Church Times. Speaking of Rotorua, the writer says:— " There is a splendid bath-house here where rheumatic patients are treated to baths of ,as many varieties as Heinz sauces. I decided to take one of each as an experience, but it was not always easy to choose a complaint suited to each, which seemed to be a necessary preliminary. I began with the electric priest because of its name, and ended with the congealed mud-bath. The best was called the Spout. I had a deep stone-floored room ail to myself and was shut in. Then very hot mineral water began to fall from a height on to my body; but presently I discovered an overflow which prevented the water rising about my arms. This was unsporting and annoying, but with the assistant of an old copy of the Westminister Gazette I succeeded in bunging the overflow, filled the room almost to the ceiling, had to swim about and finally dive to find the waste plug." Auckland he described as a very delightful town, but "Wellington is a very draughty place, and you must rarely if ever leave go of your hat; it is also the seat of Government and of the GovernorGeneral. Before the present distinguished occupants of the vice-regal throne there have been a number of exalted beings. The lady of one found the society of New Zealand less exhilarating than that of London, and many good stories were told of her doings, for some of which I can vouch. Before a dinner party at Auckland she made a bet with the A.D.C. that if she wore her gloves at dinner everyone else would do the same, and of course she won. About dessert time, His Excellency, looking down to her end of the table, inquired, " How's Jane?" and received the answer: "Oh, Jane's tired. And Jane's bored. And Jane's going to bed." And she went. Nevertheless, by their kind offices, I was sent tickets for the Distinguished Strangers' Gallery in the House of Representatives by the Speaker, and invited to the Diocesan Synod. The latter reconciled me' to an Established Church. They debated With emotion, skill, and for a long time as to whether two acres, one perch, three poles of land at Otototatoi should be sold for the benefit of the living or retained as a playground for the vicar's children. The Archdeacon, in a voice broken with emotion. reminded them of their duty to children yet unborn, the laymen argued that perhaps the perch could be retained and the poles disposed of, while the vicar, with full-bottomed hirsute adornments, related the story of his offsprings' various ailments. I came away a sharper .and more wistful man. " On Sunday I tried our Cathedral but could not bear it, and went on to St. Peter's, Willis Street, vrhere Mass began with a procession slow moving behind a portable cross. The surplice was then used at the altar and no candles were lighted. A mixed choir sang well, but such cheap music. The oft-repeated Amen of the Credo suggested a. profound Agnosticism. The congregation rightly sat for the Offertorium, but rose en masse and rendered homage to an uplifted almsdish ! Afterwards three-quarters of the flock triumphantly withdrew to the strains of verbun supernum prodiens. There were, I noticed, four priests attached to the church, but only one Mass during the week. . I tried , also a quiet service of intercession on a week night, and for that there was a i processional cross and four acolytes. " Almost without exception my experience of churchmanship in the North Island, where the Oxford movement had penetrated at all, .was of far too much unreasonable ceremonial, . very long and dull services and little open proclamation of the simple truths of the Catholic religion. No doubt- it has all changed of late. " In the,evening I went to the Roman Catholic cathedral and listened to a violent Sinn Fein sermon, but the preacher was hauled over the coals by the Archbishop of Wellington a ,few days later. The Archbishop is famous for his pastoral on prohibition, which was a masterly analysis of the heresies underlying that ferocious movement, and no one has done more finally to defeat the proposal in New Zealand. The death blow was given by the votes of the soldiers who returned from the war."