CLERGYMAN ABUSED.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20330, 11 February 1928, Page 7

CLERGYMAN ABUSED.

AN ANONYMOUS LETTER. PROTEST FROM THE PULPIT. A vigorous public protest concerning an anonymous letter was made in London recently by the Rev. C. E. Morton, rural dean of Leamington, in a sermon at Holy Trinity Church, Leamington. “In Leamington,,as in no other place in the Diocese of Coventry, there has been an epidemic of scurrilous anonymous letters to the clergy,” Mr Morton said. “ The height of the campaign was reached when a letter was sent to Canon Feist the vicar of Leamington, on the day his 21 year old son was buried. “ The writer, referring to the service at which all the clergy of the deanery were present, and at which the coffin was placed between lighted candles, said: ‘ What a spectacle of illegal ritualism. How dishonouring and offensive to Almighty God. Let the dead bury their dead. Would not one clergyman have been sufficient for this, and could not the others have been better engaged?’ The writer of the letter went on to repeat what he or she had heard in regard to the funeral such as ‘ a circus,’ ‘ topping show.’ ” Mr Morton said ; “ The receipt of such a letter by the vicar and at such a time of bereavement was responsible for my indignation. I attended this funeral as rural dam, and there was nothing illegal or unusuai in th« sr-vice. A large number of sc. ’K - - pamphlets is ilso being circulated. One such pamphlet describes the Archbishop of Canterbury as ‘the silly archbishop.’ Will you please ipake it clear that I mentioned the anonymous letter to the vicar as a local illustration of what I believe is a general campaign of scurrility.”