PARSON ELOPES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17346, 29 September 1924, Page 7

PARSON ELOPES.

DISAPPEARS WITH FOURTEEN-YEAR-OLD CHOIR GIRL.

SEVERAL PASTORS CONCERNED IN LOVE SCANDALS. By Telegraph.-—Frees Association. —Copyright.—Sydney “ Sun ” Cable. (Received September 29, 9.45 a.m.) NEW YORK, September 28. The Rev. Joseph Yates, of Oklahoma, in a farewell note to his congregation, informed them that he had eloped with a 14-year-old member of the choir. He added that when a clergyman strayed from the straight and narrow path, the publicitygiven him created more feeling than if the average person strayed. Yates recently divorced his wife, naming another clergyman, the Rev. Bertram Miller, as co-respondent. Miller committed suicide. In his note of farewell, Yates said that he also contemplated suicide, but did not wish to put an extra stain on the Cloth, following so much publicity recently, in the case of the Rev. Lawrence Hight, of Mount Vernon, Illinois, who fell in love with a member of his congregation. It was alleged that Hight poisoned his wife and his lover poisoned her husband. Both are now in the saitu gaol, as the result of Hight's complete confession.