PASSING NOTES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 8021, 5 November 1887, Page 1 (Supplement)

PASSING NOTES.

(From Otago Witness.)

Parliament continuing in a state of suspended animation, a door of opportunity has been opened to the two Synods. These reverend bodies have had the newspapers almost entirely to themselves for a week past. The public intelligence has survived the strain. Two or three supremely thrilling moments there have been, in which the brain of the community reeled with excitement —as when tho Rev. Dr Stuart thanked God that he was not the Synod, and the Rev. Mr Kirkland impeached himforprofanity; also.again, when Mr A. C. Begg and Mr John Gillies appeared at the bar to argue the case against instrumental music, —-but these passed, and reason is still left to us. It must be confessed, however, that a week's reading o£ ecclesiastical debates is very wearing. Promise continually outruns performance. You have all the verbal preliminaries of a physical tussle—Brother A metaphorically tweaking Brother B's nose, Brother C " squaring " at Brother D, Brother E intimating his belief that Brother F is no better than an ass—but nothing comes of it. Everything is interpreted in a Pickwickian sense; the " brethren " praise and pray untroubled before and after, as though they had merely been exchanging the ordinary courtesies of Christian intercourse. This sort of thing is trying to the natural man. He doesn't like to be worked up again and again to breathless expectancy of a fight that after all never comes off. Perhaps on the whole, however, the cut-and-thrust polemics of tho Presbyterians, though their rapiers are foiled and no blood is drawn, are preferable to the placid dulness of the Anglicans. Bishop Nevill seems to have presided over a dormitory of mild-eyed melancholy Lotos-eaters in—

Aland la whifch it always seemeth afternoon. Probably it is only Bishop Moran amongst ecclesiastic* who can review the doings of the past week with unmingled satisfaction. Bishop Moran has been presented with a sheaf of complimentary addresses andacheque for £1100. How do the Romanists manage it? They must have their rows, like other people, yet never a discordant note reaches the ears" of the outer world. The pinch of bad times must be felt at St. Joseph's as elsewhere, yet St. Joseph's can testimonialise its bishop to the tune of £1100. Clearly both Presbyterians and Anglicans have something to learn from Bishop Moran.

Both Anglicans and Presbyterians, I observe, are exercised on the subject of the educational qualifications of their ministers. The Anglicans, according to Dr Belcher, desiderate a learned ministry; the Presbyterians, according to Dr Stuart, are concerned for culture. Both are right, I suppose; always remembering that learning is capable of being deadly dull, and that culture may be spelled " culchaw " and represent a thin veneer that is apt to crack. One of my correspondents relates a recent experience in an up-country church which may be brought in here. P give it in his own ■words: —

With the minister himself I was well pleased, so also with the sermon and the service; but with one thing I was quite astonished—namely, the expertness with which communication was made by the preacher with a spittoon which must have been on a considerable elevation. Only once was this done, but once was enough. I always thought that spittoons were kept on the floor —but not of a pulpit.

Give us learning, however dull, 0 Messieurs of the Synods; give us culture, even in the form of " culchaw "; but deliver us, pray deliver us, from spittoons in the pulpit! Let not refinement, more Americano, be pushed to so extreme a length as this. I confess to a secret liking for the old type of Scotch minister now growing scarce—Dean Ramsay's type, who flourished before the incursion of organs and human hymns, knew little of culture, and wore no blue ribbon in his coat to be the advertisement of virtue in a condition of unstable equilibrium. I'pick up ■when I can a new story of this fastdeparting type of Scotch parson. Here is one, not in* Dean Ramsay, and presumably new, for the narrator affirms that he was present at kirk when the incident occurred. "It was in the good old days," he says, •' when our ministers could take their toddy. One Sabbath the Doctor, somehow, felt rather sleepy, even after he was in the pulpit. He gave out the psalm, and sat down as the precentor rose to lead the praises of the congregation. Lulled by the singing he was soon dozing, and did not at once rise to lead in prayer. The precentor turned, and looking up, said,' It's a' din, sir.' Partially aroused, the Doctor replied^ ' Weel, John, there's mair i' the brown jug.'"

The moral of the Financial Statement — ■which paints our position in even worse colours than we expected—is that the day of small things is at hand. A £400,000 deficit to face at the end of the present financial year, and only a paltry million of borrowed money—the dregs of our Public Works policy left at the bottom of the cup. There is only one true remedy for such a case as this—we must forget straightway the magnificent inflation of recent years, and become in mind once more humble early settlers, labouring toilsomely and content with great expectations as our reward. If a few politicians and the bishops and clergy of the diocese could he persuaded to return temporarily to check shirts and leggings and sleep under canvas on the Octagon green, a certain moral support would be given to the movement. But this can scarcely be ex-: pected. In fact, frugality and contentment, under adverse circumstances—so easy to practice at an early stage, become woefully difficult later on. Remember the words of the poet— An unfortunate cook Was cast on a rock— A rook in the midst of the sea; Saia he, with a cuss, " Well it mi(?ht have been wuss; I've an excellent bunch Of seaweed for lunch, And a capital view o£ the sea.

We, on our rock in the midst of the' sea, were at the outset considerably better off . than this philosophical bird; but observe •what a mess we have made of it. We have hypothecated our bunch of seaweed, and have little left at the moment except our rock and our capital view of the sea. Not being able to realise upon our geographical position, the wisest thing we can do is to cultivate the rock, and learn humble lessons of patience and resignation. "It might have been wuss." This is poor consolation as a rule, but it will have to satisfy us in the meantime.

■ National characteristics are' difficult to efface, as the Presbyterians are finding by the result of their Chinese mission. The mission report, it will be noticed, spoke with forced cheerfulness of labours " which, though not apparently showing much fruit, have not been without their influence," and Mr Don and Mr Kwook Wai Shang, who testified before the Synod, did not really make the case much brighter. These gentlemen, who probably melnttobe encouraging, only succeeded zn once more demonstrating that— For ways that are dark, and trickß that are vain, The heathen Chinee is peculiar. What saidMr Don, the missionary?—" There were cases in which the reception he met with was not calculated either to enliven or encourage him"—a sentence pregnant with grim suggestion. And he went ontosay, that Is the result of the past year's labours they^had baptised but one Chinaman. He. was baptised Matthew. But note the sequel as supplied by Mr Don:" A fen montlts later he took ill and died in tJie Dwnedin Hospital. Nothing in this to induce his almond-eyed compatriots to flock to the font, and plenty ■ to fan that flame of prejudice which was pictured so graphically by Mr Kwook Wai Shang. The latter gentleman told how his own relatives were "much put out" on hearing of his leanings towards Christianity, and were so far insensible to the principles of religious tolerance as to chase him with an axe. Such experiences as this are among the practical difficulties of which "Paley's Evidences " takes no cognisance.

In this instance, however, Kwook Wai Shang appears to have escaped the threatened martyrdom and won his way to the fold by exhibiting a clean paw of heels, but only to encounter fresh difficulty at the bands of his fellow-countryman at Bound Hill They treat their catechistprecisely as, in the confused imagination of a certain undergraduate, the Good Samaritan treated the Seper. At parting, wrote ibis miserable youth, he (the Samaritan) handed the innkeeper twopence, and said, "Take care of him, and whatsoever thou spendes^ more, when I come again I will repay thee. i nis U said hwiviny that he should look vpon Ms faoe iv> more. The Chinese or Round Hill reproduce this improved version of the parable to a nicety, according to Mr Kwook Wai Shang, and they reproduce with equal fidelity other Christian traits that could well be dispensed with Thus- " He had attendances of irom 20 to dU Chinese at his meetings when there was a scarcity of water for mining, but when there Wplenty of water there were only about To present" Precisely upon a level, it.will be Mongolian character thoroughly, especially as represented by such of his countrymen as land upon these shores, ana partiality m no

way blinds him to the fact that they arc upon the whole a bad lot. He admits as much. It is, he says, "purely something material" (».*., a desire for gold dust) that takes them away from China, and not an inclination for "spiritual things." Many oE them also " had left their country for their country's good." It would be a pity to discourage Kwook Wai Shang further in his labours, but his frankness may gain him on his return to Round Hill an even warmer reception than ho has met with hitherto.

An unfortunate lawyer has been relating in the Bankruptcy Court to a deeply -interested audienco-to wit, his creditors—the story of his professional ups and downs for the last five years. Strictly speaking, ho enjoyed during that period only one "up. In 1881 Ms business brought hiui in tho handsome sum of £700. All his subsequent experiences were "downs," his income consistently and persistently declining, till m 1886 it descended to £223 18s Bd. In 18S7 it approached the vanishing point. As man must live—while he can—income or no income it follows that the lawjer during this period of decline and fall could hardly help getting into debt. In fact he got into debt to the extent of £631 lls od. Finally ho appeared to explain matters to his creditors in the Bankruptcy Court. It was a painful explanation—painful to both sides, but on neither side was thero any unmanly lamenting. The debtor promised to pay when he could; the creditors said he was an honest fellow, accepted the insolvency in a Christian spirit as one of those dispensations of a mysterious providence about which it is useless to ask questions, and adjourned siiie die. The moral of the debtor's story, as I read it, is that the legal profession is no longer tho land ot Goschen it was five years ago. The business of law, like the business of beer—which is similarly related to our vices and weaknesses,—has diminished, partly because we have grown virtuous, but chiefly because we have grown poorer. Yet Sir George Grey is to the front again at the beginning of a new session with his bill to facilitate the production of lawyers. I won't say that he might as fitly propose a bill for the importing of rabbits and the protecting of the Calif ornian thistle, but I will say that he might be more usefully employed. Sir George still talks of the profession of law as a lucrative monopoly which ought to be burst up for general distribution. He would be nearer the mark if he called it a genteel beggary, and proposed to make every other man in it the recipient of charitable aid. What is a lawyer to turn to when law fails? Give it up ? He ought to turn carpenter, for, says an English paper, "he can file a bill, split a hair, chop logic, dovetail an argument, make an entry, get up a case, frame an indictment, empanel a jury, put them in a box, nail a, witness, hammer a judge, bore a court, and sometimes chisel a client." I don't know whether there is any practical value in this advice, but I offer it with my compliments, and, in consideration of the circumstances, will forego the customary 6s Bd.

A correspondent writes as follows: — Dear "Civis,"—l think the enclosed is too good to be lost, and, as Mr Mould says in " Martin Chuzzlewit," should be sent to somebody who can make use of it. Who better than you ? It was received in reply to a note inquiring the whereabouts of Mr S . Here is the enclosed, veri. et lit.: — Mr S left hear gon out of Dunedin no nothing about this nothing to do withe me beside thir no Mr W. H. S live hear and never was and no good of sending hear I no nothing about it and don't want to know so you nead not send hear to me. Treats the subject from every possible point of view, with a severity and conciseness not to be surpassed. Is vague in orthography, and needs punctuating from a pepper-caster, yet leaves nothing to be desired on the score of clearness. The writer is not going to be pumped about the whereabouts of Mr S., and he is not going to continue the correspondence. Acts of Parliament aTe sometimes less lucid, and even leading articles occasionally fail to convey so clear a sense. There are literary merits in this brief composition which the correspondent who sends it hardly seems to recognise. Civia.