A Stirring Preacher.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6654, 20 September 1889, Page 2

A Stirring Preacher.

Church and Stage. []?bom otjb. London Corbespondknt.J London, AugUßt 10. TWO EX-GOVEBNOBB. Sir G. Bowen has gone to KiaEingen for hia annual " cure/ preparatory to assisting his biographer to arrange his Vice-regal despatches, &c, for publication. Sir W. Jervois and family are alao on the Continent. GOLD-MINING EXHIBITION. The venuo of the Gold-mining Exhibition, of which Sir W. Buller and Sir H. Bobinson ara patrons, ha* been removed from the Alexandra Palace to the Spanish Exhibition, a much handier bite. Numerous interesting specimens from New Zealand have been promised by colonists in England. GOOD FBBIGHTS. Sailing vessels for New Zealand are filling up rapidly, especially those bound for Auckland and Dunedin. The Invercargill, which Bailß to-day, had to shut out one hundred tons of cargo. DB GRACE ON THE HAYBEICK CASE. Dr Grace, who is staying at the Mansions, Richmond, just now, has been delivering himself to a Star reporter on the Maybrick case. It seema lie recently met " Tay Pay" O'Connor out at dinner, and the latter, remembering, after the verdict wa3 announced, that his new acquaintance had told their party about a similar poisoning case in New Zealand, sent one of his young men to interview the Dootor. The little medico waß very communicative, but the reporter wisely condensed his remarks into a brief " par" about the Hall trial. He (the reporter) tells me, however, that the Doctor pronounced Mrs Maybrick innocent as an unborn babe. If Mr Maybrick had died of arsenic it would, he declared, have been found in bis teeth, hair, liver, and lunge. All Englishmen were narrow-minded bigots, and a New Zealand crosoing-sweeper was more intelligent than an English M. P. No New Zealand jury would have found Mrs Maybrick guilty, nor would a New Zealand Judge have shown the prejudice Mr Justice Stephen did. The glory of medicine was that it was not an exact science. Dr Grace further condescended to say that England was not a bad sort of place, though a"damsite" too wet. New Zealand, however, was the country of the future. Tour Anglo-Saxon opened out and blOßßomed when be got there, throwing off all stiff conventionalities and becoming a new man. He himself had been rather incommoded during his travels, through being constantly mistaken for another Dr Grace— Dr W. G. Grace, a celebrated cricketer, he believed. LOED HOPETOUN*S FUnNITDEI. Mr Honeyman, nephew of Dr fioneyman, of Auckland, lias taken a passage by the Britannia for Auckland, sailing in October. He will have a very smart set of fellowpassengers, as it is in this steamer that Lord Hopetoun, the new Governor of \ Victoria, has chartered twenty-aix cabins to transport himself and household gods to Melbourne. His hones, his coach, and the extraordinary amount of furniture and bric-a-brac that, report says, his Lordship contemplates taking with him to bis Australasian home, will probably give Mr Honeyman and his "voyage friends," as Yankees term them, plenty to talk about on the voyage. Mr and Mrs Peacock, Mr Milne, and several others are arranging to return by this steamer. CAPTAIN ABHBY'S BOOK. Captain Ash by 's little book on New Zealand appears to be having a wide circulation. Calling on him the other day, I found he had quite " run out" of the £00.

private circulation copies, first .ordered Irom the publisher, and was arranging _for a new edition of seme 1000 copies. The \ following par comes from a ohance Swiaaj German paper :— " To Emigrants ! No land offers to emigrants such fine chances as New Zealand. The writer haa received from Captain Ashby a pamphlet prepared by him touching this lovely country. I shall make a translation or it for your columns." A private letter states that the Post intends to republiah Captain Ashby'a book in weekly instalments. A QUICK PASSAGE. The Tainui, Shaw, Savill and Co/a steamship, from New Zealand on June 27, reached Plymouth on Sunday last, and her mails rrere delivered on Monday. Time— Thirty-nine days from Wellington. During the voyage two deaths occurred, casting a gloom over what would otherwise have been an exceptionally pleasant voyaga. The first engineer died shortly after leaving New Zealand, and later on a Miss Greigg, from Sydney, died somewhat suddenly from bronchitis. SATISFIED WITH NBW ZEALAND. Mr and Mrs Alfred Bowden and a family of nine children are returning to the Colony by the Orient steamer Oizaba, sailing on August 17. The family were formerly resident in Canterbury, and left there some years ago for America with a view of bettering their position. Arrived there, however, they were dissatisfied with. American prospects, and came quickly on to England, In the course of a short chat, Mr Bowden told me he haa come to the opinion, after travelling all round the world, that there is no place like New Zealand. As stated, they return via Australia, the Orient Company having agreed to take them to Melbourne and pay their passages across in the Union Company's boats to Chriatchurch for Jess money than was demanded by the Shaw, Savill Company. BACK BY AUSTBAIiIA. Quite a number of New Zealanders are, by the way, returning via Australia, as they find better terms can be made with the P. and O. Company than with Shaw, Savill's, notwithstanding that many of their vessels are leaving England with very fenr passengers. A COMIKG PRSACHER: CHUKCH AITI> STAGE. There is some talk, by the way, ot the Jiev Steward Hedlain visiting the Colonies, and though uoconfirmation of the rumour— . which comes from a friend of the rev . gentleman — has yet come to hand, I give it ior what it is worth. You will certainly enjoy Hedlain if he does come. He is, as you are probably aware, a follower of Kingsley. Christian Socialism 16 hs ideal ; mußOular Christianity liis daily doctrine. A great admirer of the stage and ballet, he has given some trouble to the straightlaced dignitaries of church by his treelyexpressed, and somewhat unorthodox views. The broad, common sense of his id£as is only equalled by the freedom with which he disseminates them. His " Function of the Stage," made a fearful stir in bhe dovecotes of the oldfashioned clergy, and has just been republishediu a pamphlet form. As I said, he does like the ballet. Probablj , clear away back to David, no church individual haa ever been such aa enthusiastic admirer of the Terpsiohorean art. But he must not be misunderstood in this. Ho has a .passionate contempt for rnUßichall vulgar (and worse) form of dancing. Waltzing he regards with compasion, for in the course ot! a lecture on the subject ha observes that " a slim lady who does a few quiet steps and makes a few graceful po3es is good, asf.'tr as she goes; jubtaa schoolroom poetry is good as far aa it goes. But something more than this is necessary. Your dancer, as your poet, muet not only be simple, though simplicity is always necessary, but also be sensuous and impassioned. She has more to express than she possibly can do by a few delicate movements of a lace pocket-handkerchief, or a few twists of voluminous petticoats." A goody-goody curate in the audience was much scandalized, and next Sunday was unwise enough to advise Hedlam in a niilk-a-watqr sermon. He had reason to wish himself dead before next week. The muscular Christian poured the vials of hia contempt on him to a merciless extent, and pitied his inability to understand that the words sensuous and sensual had as widelydifferent meanings aa the wordß pure and prurient. If he comes ie will be in, the° winter. BFUBGEON THE TOUNGEB. You will probably remember the sensational paragraphs mat got iuto the papers a little while ago anent one of theeoußof the great Suurgeonjwho had been outon a visit his brother in Auckland. The spicy items, given by enterprising but somewhat unveracious pressmen accused the young Baptist of carrying on a very pronounced flirtation with a lady on board a homeward bound ship. We have, most of us, done something in the flirtation way when at sea. Some have preferred the mere spooning form of the game, while others have gone in for what is generally known as intellectual flirtation, which nieatis reading poetry together, long arguments on every subject under the sun, aud a good deal of sitting close together. A more innocent form of eujoyment it were hard of discovery. Mr bpurgeon, senior, would not eeem to deny that Qis eon is human, and haß done what every one else does on board steamers, if fortunate. But he strongly denies that there wsb anything wrong. In his own review this month he observes :— " Our son has had to bear the ills of exaggeration and falsehood through the eagerness of reporters to create a eenßational paragraph ; but no one who knows him has ever suspected him in the manner mentioned, far less of a wrong." As to his second son, the Baptist minister in Auckland, Mr Spurgeon cays: — "We are nob without grave trial in the ill-health, of our second son. He has been so depressed that he has felt he mußt seek a change. He has done good Bervice during the years of his sojourn in Auckland. May the Lord restore hid health, and make him a still greater blessing somewhere else." People will doubtless sympathise with both father and son. Board ship scandal is about as unscrupulous a thing as there is in the world ; most have, at some time or other, Buffered therefrom. THE "ECHO" AND MB FROTWE. The Echo to-day haa a column _of "Froude" by a contributor signing himself "M." After a wearisome review of the historian's past, and a few mild comments on the extraordinary way in which he edited and wrote Carlyle's letters and biography, damning the great philosopher for ever even in the eyes of hiß former admirers, and making him out an ingenious, complaining -ingrate, " M." delivers himself as follows : — Mr Froude, however, has an unhappy, knack of stirring up contention and strife. Ever since he published bis " Nemesis of Faith" he has been in hot water— now with the zealots, now with the historians and critics, later on with the Iriah, and so recently as the publication of his " Oceana " with our kinsfolk in the Australian Colonies. But he is a great writer — one of the greatest of his generation — of whom his contemporaries are deservedly proud. His faults aro those of a generous, impulsive nature, which feels 6trbngly, and takes aidea ardently. Possibly for this reason his historical work lacks the hallmark which only absolutely cold-blooded impartiality can give. But the warmth, of his feelings lends colour and passion to his prose, and in the superb Tiban-like pictures he draws we feel compensated for the absence of that nice accuracy which, after all, is but the small pedantry of the dry-as-diißt historian. Better a page of Livy'a magnificent inaccuracy tliuu a whole chapter of the careful rehearsing of hard facts by such au historian, for instance, aa Julius Cesar. And Mr Froude's pictured of English life in the 16th century will fascinate readers when the carpings of hia fustidious critics are forgotten.