MINISTER’S SPEECH

Taranaki Daily News, 22 December 1932, Page 7

MINISTER’S SPEECH

SURPRISE FOR LISTENERS.

UNEMPLOYMENT APPEAL. New York, Dec. 10. Members of the fashionable • Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church congregation were much startled when their Australian ' pastor, : the Rev. Henry Howard, said to them: — “If any of you. can view the distress and misery existing without feeling the urgency of its appeal, all I can say is, ‘lf these things do not-interest you, then you can go to hell, and-may your money perish with you.’” ' The meeting at which the outburst came .was called for the purpose of furthering an appeal -for the. women s division of the . Emergeticy Relief Committee. In the appeal, which was made after, the regular sermon, Mr. Howard emphasised that many educated women were being compelled to huddle together in the subways for warmth. ; At a meeting of church members,, following the incident, some spoke jin censure -of. the phrase, while others, declared’.it: was used in a Biblical sense, and not that of “soldiers during the. war.”

The Rev. Henry Howard was bom in Melbourne in 1859, and. after being , ordained in 1885 held posts with the Methodist Church in Victoria and in Adelaide. He went to Brighton, m England, and thence-to the United- States.