APPLICANTS FOR CHARITABLE AID.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6120, 5 March 1898, Page 6

APPLICANTS FOR CHARITABLE AID.

The Post says that the old question of compelling the husbands of women apply- | ing for charitable aid to attend at the •. meetings of the Benevolent Trustees with j or instead of their wives cropped up at the last meeting of the trustees. The opinion was unanimously expressed that the men should attend before help was given, but the difficulty of enforcing this rule without starving those dependent upon the men i who will not attend has so far proved in- ; surmountable. Occasionally a man will be j found with sufficient courage to face the I unpleasant task of applying for charitable aid, but in the vast majority of cases the unfortunate wives have to sacrifice their own feelings to spare those of their lords and masters. j

CHEISTIAN SPIRITUALISM. Spiritualists are, this year, celebrating , the jubilee of spiritualism, it being exactly fifty years since the phenomena of table- I rappings were manifested at Rochester, in j England, to a band of inquirers anxious to lift a corner of the veil interposed between, this world and the next. Since then a considerable development in the movement has been made — so the spiritualists of today hold— and the higher. or Christian spiritualism, which is its outcome, concerns j itself no longer with phenomena merely, ; but undertakes to explain the mysteries of the Christian religion, of which they con- \ aider themselves the faithful exponents, i Whether they are so or not the , Christchurch public will shortly have an ! opportunity to judge for themselves from the utterances of Mrs T. Harris, a teacher of what may be called the spiritual aspect ' of Christianity. This lady, whose lectures in various parts of New Zealand have attracted a good deal of attention, has devoted herself to tho movement for some- . thing like ten years, during which, period she has lived chiefly in Sydney, though her married live was spent in the northern, part i of this colony. Her husband, it appears, ' possessed the power of magnetic healing to ' a remarkable degree, and this he exercised ' unostentatiously in the home circle and in : his immediate neighbourhood. Mrs Harris, J who, as " Jenny Wren," had written numer- ■ ous essays, stories and poems for Auckland and other papers, removed, after her husband's death, to Sydney, where she contrived to support herself and her family of small children by her pen. Meanwhile the clair-audient faculty she possessed led her towards spiritualism and the teaching of spirituality, to which she is now devoting her whole time. Working Men's Club. — A variety and dramatic performance will be given at the Social Hall of the Christchurch Working Men's Club at eight o'clock on Monday 1 evening.