CONFLICTING OPINIONS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7637, 21 February 1903, Page 4

CONFLICTING OPINIONS.

(Received Feb. 21, 11.5 ajn.) Cardinal Moran has reoeived no furthei infonnation than that 238 Bibles were burned. H& aaid he would not approve of offending any Protestant bodies by such a* act 'as buraiag. Bibles. He did not think the priests had had' anything to do with it, bui that probably it was the work of converts. The chiefs had informed Bishop Vidol, when he was at Namosi, that the Methodists were preying upon them, and doing them no good, and that their desire tc change their faith was the voluntary choice cf the tmtives t and decided upon after holding several councils of the chiefs of the province. The Rev Lane, President of the Methodist Conference, said Cardinal Mora-n's statement, that the Methodists had preyed upOD the natives, was a libel upon the missionaries. His opinion was that the priest* had preyed oa lh& natives. (A private cable massage received, by the Weskyan Missions Board, in Sydney, from Fiji, states that trouble has arisen, in Suva and the provinces, through T«.stainentt from Najnosi being burned on a limekiln. The Secretary of the missions' understand* the cable to mean that a number of Testaments were collected from, the district oi Namosi, where a large number of people, under the influence of orders from then principal chief, turned over from the Methodist Mission' to the Roman Catholics, and that these Testaments were taken to the principal Roman Catholic Mission, at Naililili, and burned at a lianekilfl there.)