MISCELLANEOUS NEWS.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume VII, Issue 1119, 11 September 1880, Page 2

MISCELLANEOUS NEWS.

Mr. Thoma3 Walker, who will be recollected as a trance lecturer in Dunedin some time ago, appears to be following the same vocation at the Cape. There can be no doubt that by the vast majority here he was looked on as a humbug, but that does not appear to be . the opinion held of him in his present location, as he has been addressing large audiences, and we find the Capetown Express making the following serious reference to him : — lt is useless to ignore the fact that Mr. Walker is drawing crowds of curious and earnest listeners after him. The Athenaeum is crowded each time he delivers his anti-dogmatic addresses, and among his audience' will be found members of nearly every church in town. It seems rather striking that last Sunday evening Mr. Walker was exerting his oratoricalpowers to the utmost to prove that the account of the fall of man as related in Genesis is a myth, while across the road a clergyman of the Church of England was exhorting his congregation to believe the Bible from beginning to end, every . word and every letter, as the whole ; : counsel of God. It is useless, we say, to ignore the influence which circumstances like these exert on the com? muhity, and it is the bounden duty of the clergy to step forth and give their hearers something else besides the dry bones of dogma and tradition te feed upon. Far be it from us to defend all Mr. Walker's arguments, but he is. atleast honest to his convictions, and it is well that ministers of religion should know that he is making havoc in ■their flocks. If they are wise they will -arrest the miichief before it is too late, and the best action they can take ia to meet Mr. Walker on his own ground, and; no set at rest the minds of doubters!

A remarkable freak of lightning is recorded in a French newspaper.- Afanix labourer, running for shelter, .. was suddenly thrown to the ground,' the fork he carried on his shoulder^beiMg^ wrenched from his grasp and carried through the air to a distance of fifty or sixty yards. The prongs were bent and twisted, with well-nigh mathematical accuracy, into shape of corkscrews, the steel being bent, and formed on its. exterior surface into small idrniiUßp •which emitted a slightly sulphureous odour. The labourer escaped without injury. : -• '. |