THE PRESBYTERIAN GENERAL ASSEMBLY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19940, 6 November 1926, Page 23

THE PRESBYTERIAN GENERAL ASSEMBLY.

TO THE EDITOB. Sir—ln view of tho approaching meeting of tho Presbyterian Assembly, 1 ask tho hospitality of your columns to direct tho attention of its members to a secret session of that assembly held in Dunedin in 1921 and to an extraordinary violation of tho constitution of tho church at that secret meeting. A native of Bohemia who, during tho Groat War, camo and thanked mo for my Reformation booklet published by tho Presbyterian Church, told mo that tho most cruel outrage committed by the Germans when they overran Bohemia was to destroy the courts of justice, and when men were tried and condemned in absence of accused, and property was confiscated and character dragged through tho mud of lying accusation. When 1 hoard this story I never expected to see such justice in New Zealand, and 1 never expected that I would ho a victim of such justice at the hands of tho church that 1 have served r.li my days. But such has been my lot, and I am resolved that I, the first victim of such injustice, shall' bo the last. On page 49 of the Presbyterian Blue Book for 1921 a considerable part of a page is devoted to the record of a secret meeting from which press and public were excluded, and I, 300 miles away from Dunedin, and in complete ignorance of what was going on, am tried and condemned for offences 1 never committed, and the printed story of this trial and condemnation was withheld from me, as tho Presbyterian office in Wellington, tho real publisher ot tho Blue Book, rot used to sell mo copies, so that if there was anything libellous in tho print tho responsibility of the libel was saddled on tho innocent printing company. This trial and condemnation in my absence and without citation took place first in Judicial Committee, uhich consisted in 1921 chiefly of tho Rev. J. 11. Mackenzie (convenor) and Messrs Comrie, Gumming, and Ashor, and this new star chamber seized on my writings as acting secretary of the Biblo-in-Statc-richools’ League, and brought them and mo within the jurisdiction of the Church, promptly condemned such writings, and authorised tho Wellington Presbytery to excommunicate mo if I persisted in circulating such writings. 1 enclose the sot of Bihlo-iii-Sfate Schools’ League papers, which Messrs Mackenzie, Comrie, Cumining, and Asher sat in judgment on and condemned in November, 1921. Tiii- amo sot of papers had been sent to every l rcbytery of the Church six months before, and the Rev. J. 11. Mackenzie had had these papers in his possession for that period in Wellington, and as I was in Wellington it was his business, as a member ot Wellington Presbytery, if the slightest taint of wrongdoing was attached to my conduct, to cite me before the Presbytery. within whoso bounds I was living. Tho Dunedin Presbytery got these papers six months before tho assembly, and Mr Kilpatrick, clerk of Presbytery, reported to mo that tho Public Questions Committee of that Presbytery bad taken charge of tho papers. 1 had occasion to send, in November, a special set of the papers to the Moderator (tho Rev. D. Dutton) in order first to complain to Assembly against grave discourtesy in correspondence on tho part of an official of tho church, and to correct errors in the White Book respecting the Bible in State Schools' League. But the Assembly, as far as tho records are concerned, never heard of my complaint and conviction, and the Judicial Committee seems to have obtained these papers and made me (the complainant) tho criminal and si dded in a vw effective way one of its own number. The Judicial Committee as never appointed to intercept papers sent to the Assembly, and to suppress letters as it suppressed mine, and, apart from its chief offence, it was guilty of usurping the functions ol tho Bills and Business Committee.

I shall not ask space for the whole mockery of justice page 49 of the Blue Book. I only quote the extraordinary close:—“ln view of the conduct of Mr Wood in sending letters to abuse members of this church, which has created a fama, the Assembly enjoins Mr Wood to refrain in future from such action, and the Assembly instructs the Wellington Presbytery to take notice of Mr Wood’s conduct and if the Assembly’s injunction bo not obeyed to consider whether for contumacy Mr Wood should not bo suspended from the status of the ministry.” This motion was carried on the motion of the Rev. J. H. Mackenzie, and seconded by_ the Rev. J. Paterson—not the deceased “Grand Old Man” of our church. Here I am pilloried as having made a fama by writing abusive letters and, without any further trial, the Wellington Presbytery is authorised to excommunicate me if I continued to circulate abusive letters. The nature of the abusive letters is not specified, and the Clerk of Assembly refused again to specify them, and I had to pay a-bput £2O to learn from the judgment of .a commission that the Judicial Committee never had before it any other writings ol mine than the enclosed official papers ot the Bible-in-State-Schools’ League. On the fact of it such a published condemnation is n libel at civil law, but as a Christian minister I shunned this mode of redress and appealed to the Assembly. I petitioned the 1922 Assembly, but the petition was suppressed in a committee of Assembly. I petitioned the 1923 Assembly, but my petition was excluded from the AMiite Book. By my printing and circulating my petition among members it came before the Assembly and a commission was appointed to deal with my whole case, but I was perplexed to loam that the chairman of the commission was a member of the Judicial Committee, which had not onh' tried and condemned me in its committee, but had persuaded the Assembly at a secret meeting to approve of such a condemnation. The commission mot in Wellington in July, 1924; it sat for five days and gave its judgment. At the outspt I had protested against a man who had already prejudged the case against me silting as a judge, but at the end of the case, when the judgment was given. 1 agreed to overlook its gross unfairness in part because it rescinded, in the name of the General Assembly, the libellous and unconstitutional condemnation I have quoted above. The judgment, however, gave great offence to one or two prominent persons in Wellington who publicly condemned the finding of the commission a? no judgment at all, and at the next meeting of Assembly in 1924 in Palmerston North the commission withheld the report and finding given to me and signed by the chairman and secretary of the commission and substituted another report in a few words giving no information to the Assembly of the work and judgment of a commission that co-t the church £4O. Such are the facts of a grave and serious case.

A commission, with full Assembly power-, puts right a violation of the constitution of the church in 1921, and then buries it . own judgment and leaves the victim of injustice, as far as the records of Assembly are concerned, in the same evil plight he was in before be sought redress in a Christian way. I pause hero and ask member? of Assembly to consider the serious condition of a church that in the past has shod its blood for liberty and justice.— I am. etc., Robert Wood. Wellington, November 3.