IMPORTING "TALENT."

NZ Truth, Issue 57, 21 July 1906, Page 4

IMPORTING "TALENT."

So the Anglican Church Synod proposes to expend £3000 on importing a mob of parsons , frqm England to conduct a series of missions, of "revivals," throughout New Zealand. This is as funny as it is painful ; but it would appear as though the parsons who propose and those who support -such a scheme are devoid equally of the sense of humor and of a proper estimate of their own abilities. They can't see anything funny m having to get m outsiders to do their work for them ; nor do they feel any shame that it should be so considered necessary because of their own blank inability to draw good Business and keep the plate jigging among well heeled congregations, to the merry tune' of the tumbling, tinkling tizzies and shimmering shillings. Their apparent tacit acknowledgment of their own incapacity for their job is, perhaps, however", forced upon them and they feel constrained to sink their own -ersonalitv and pocket their pride, by the force of desperate circumstances. The fact is that the church-go-ing habit is one that this country is rapidly growing out of. The fteoplo nowadays are educated abov« the insolent 'order to "hold myself lowly and reverently to all my betters, spiritual teachers, pastors and masters." They want to know who are their "better?, md .what tteir spiritual teachers pnr> If row r>v riw i^ac-h thpm -Uin* they, the flock,' don't know just as

much about as the shepherd does. Thus enlightened people refuse to be cooped up m a stuffy church, twice a day, to have deadly platitudes about the unknowable droned at them by a disagreeable-looking man fantasticalr ly dressed m a white overshirt with a black or purple ribbon over it, who knows just as much about his subject as they themselves, and no more. This is what the clergy recognise and it is this matter-of-fact, composed, sensible way of looking at the thing that is the great bugbear of the parsons. Once the people learn to think for -themselves and away goes the influence of the priesthood. It has been going, like the morning mist before the sun, ever since the masses began to learn to read and write and were thus enabled to form their own conclusions. Hence the urgent need, m the mind of the churchmen, for imported talent to save the whole show; just as J. C. Williamson, when he finds his stock artists palling on the public taste, goes abroad for fresh faces and new incentives to the public patronage. It is all a show, only the theatrical entrepreneur has more nous than his brother of the church and gives his patrons more variety. It is to be hoped that if this scheme is carried out the management will not suffer a pecuniary loss, but it is much to be feared. The present agents lack fire and the billing is simply awful.