FIJI MISSIONS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 12603, 5 March 1903, Page 5

FIJI MISSIONS.

—- — I ACTION OF THE METHODIST CONFERENCE. (Br Oun Special Reporter.) ■ CHRISTCHURCH, March 4. At tho Methodist Conference this morning reference was made to the Bible-burning incident iir Fiji and to the statement of Mr Brown, general secretary of missions, at Sydney. | The Rov. J. J. Lewie moved—"That tha conference recommends the Board of Missions to communicate to the British Government its strong sense of the unsuitability of the appointment of a Roman Catholic Governor to Fiji in view of the recent con- ! vorsioil of the natives from savagory by , Protestant missionaries, and of tho fact that ' the presence of a Roman Catholic Governor I is an encouragement to tho French priests to increase tlio mischievous attempts' to disturb tho religion of the people, 20 per cent, of whom are attached to tho Protestant , faith." Tho Rev. J. J. Lewis said that tho | position was that the Methodists protested, not against a Roman Catholic being ill high oflico under the State, but against his being the Governor over a Protestant mission field just rescued from barbarism, and where his influcnco would favour the priesthood of an j alien church., The Free Church had suffered so greatly from civil disabilities that. they would be no parties to a like persceu- I tibn of Roman Catholics. A Methodist I minister might be excluded from a certain t appointment, not because ho was a Methodist minister, but because lie could be more , acceptable and useful elsewhere, <m the accession of the Governor. To give precedence , to the Roman Catholic Bishop over -the Methodist minister, who was really bishop of the church which saved cannibal and idolatrous Fiji, was a scandalous injustice. Tho Bible-burning and tho political unrest in Fiji were largely due to the religious antagonism resulting from an appointment : that was a grave injustice and a fatuous , political blunder. ' j In seconding the resolution, the Rev. Mr | Slado said his friends in Fiji assured him that the Governor was the soul of honour, but it was the use made of the fact that ho was a Roman Catholic by the priests that ' roused so much trouble. It was these men, French prieats, he believed, who' had' not much sense of honour, who were to blame. The resolution was carried unanimously.