A POPULAR CHAPLAIN.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume IV, Issue 962, 12 March 1917, Page 9

A POPULAR CHAPLAIN.

REV. W. GRIGG'S RETURN. LEESTON'S ENTHUSIASTIC WELCOME. The Rev. W. Grigg, chaplain to the forces and Methodist minister at Leeston, returned on furlough to Leeston on Thursday after an absence of eighteen months. He was met by a large crowd at the railway station, and was tendered a public welcome at the Town Hall in the evening.

The Rev. W. Sinclair, who presided, said that they were welcoming home Mr Grigg as one who had done his duty nobly, and who had represented his church and district well. The Methodist Church had sent nearly thirty per cent, of its staff to the front in various capacities, twelve of those sent being chaplains. The chairman's words of welcome were supported by the Rev. A. C. Lawry, Mr John Barnett, senior steward of the Methodist Circuit, Mr J. Cunningham, county chairman, Mr G. Sheat, representing the local preachers, Captain Davey of the Salvation Army, Mr Blair, representing the Presbyterian Church, and the Rev. P. Jones on behalf of the Anglican Church, and the Leeston Patriotic Committee.

Mr Grigg thanked all present for their kindness to himself and to his wife and family during his absence. He could say that at the front the chaplains of every denomination regarded it as a duty to do all in their power for the soldiers. In the New Zealand Mounted Brigade he had associated with him an Anglican and a Roman Catholic—two fine, bighearted men. On his admission to hospital after being wounded the first to greet him was a Roman Catholic, a fine type of a man who was stripped to the waist administering to the wounded men. They had promised to remember each other in their prayers. Mr Grigg then went on lo give a thrilling account of the exploits of the New Zealanders with whom he had been associated. No one in New Zealand, he said, could have an adequate idea of the work that had been done, and what still was being done in the oldest place of civilisation on the earth. He gave a vivid account of the action that began against the Turks on August 4, and paid a high tribute to the soldierly and manly qualities of the late Major Harold Hammond, of Leeston, who fell in that engagement. He (Mr Grigg) had watched both horses and men gradually getting thinner until they were practically nothing but skin and bone, yet the men smiled all the time, and went on without complaint. His future movements were uncertain, he said in conclusion, as he was under military orders, and would resume bis military duties when called upon.