SCENE IN A LONDON GERMAN CHURCH

Otautau Standard and Wallace County Chronicle, Volume XI, Issue 552, 21 December 1915, Page 2

SCENE IN A LONDON GERMAN CHURCH

As a result of a protest at the German Church, Montpelier place, Brompton, Mr John Lindsey Johnson, of the Anti-German Lecture League, was at Westminster Police Court summoned! to show cause why he should not be bbund over to keep the peace. Mr Muskett, prosecuting, fbr the Commissioners of Police, said 1 the pastor of the church (the Rev. A. Scholten) was a registered German, who had been exempted from internment by the Advisory Committee. Services m German were held on Sunday evenings, the congregation being a small one, composed chiefly of elderly people. At the | service on Sunday, October 8, the defendantstood up and said: "I protest against this service being conducted m German, and I ask you, as pastor, to express your sorrow at the bloody outrages committed by Germans m this country, and to ask the congregation to stand up while it is done." The pastor replied : " This is not the place or time." Mr Johnson then exclaimed : " The German Emperor is a blot upon civilisation and an outrage upon Christianity." He left the church with his friends, and the remark was made : " The Kaiser is chief apostle of the Devil." Language of that kind was inflammatory, said Mr Muskett, and the police feared possible disturbances of the peace. Tlie. defendant gave an undertaking not to visit any German churches m London, and was thereupon bound over m his own recognisance of £200 to be of good behaviour for 12 months.