Colonial Notes.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVII, Issue 4, 17 May 1889, Page 2

Colonial Notes.

Mb. R. J . Creighton, wto was formerly resident in Dunedin, but who has since resided in the United States, and who is now engaged in promoting the continuance of the San Francisco mail service, has just paid Dunedin a visit, and been interviewed by a representative of the Daily Times. Mr. Creighton speaks clearly and sensibly of the advantages of maintaining communication between New Zealand and the States ; and quite as sensibly and as clearly decries the proposed change to a Canadian Pacific line. It is cheering to find also that Mr. Creighton takes a favourable view of matters in this colony, where he declares he can find no trace of the ruia and desolation that have of late been so loudly complained of. Our grean drawback, he says, is the want of a producing population, and our distance from a market. He does not think that the opening found this year for New Ze aland produce in Austiaha, can be depended on to last, and London be looks upon as not only far too distant, but as necessitating an unequal competition with the whole world, in most of whose countries hours of labour are loner, and labour itself is cheip. The States, he says, offer us a market, especiilly in their winter, for a most profitable disposal of fruit, butter and cheese, Business however, must b- j pushed, and not idly wailed for. The maintenance of the San Francisco service he considers conducive to bring about the de-ired 8!at« of things. Another advantage possessed by the San Francisco line under the American flag is that it would be sate in time of war ; whereas a Canadian line, run under the British flag, must be protected by cruisers, or else withdrawn. Mr Creightou'a arguments, in fact, seem 60 clear and conclusive that we may Reasonably believe the poiut he advocates will be carried, and the reproach averted from New Zealand of taking one of tne most retiogrtssive and unwi-esttps tuat have probably ever been proposed to her.

The yoing idea is a curious thing. Two boys convicted the other day in Dunedin of stealing some money rrom a shop expended part ..f their ill-gotton coin in the purchase of a bottle of lemonade and a bottle of CQUgb mixture, of which they made a drink. But, at least,

v tbe refreshing draught seems to have had no ill effects the innocuousnesß of the medicine used is established.

An instance of what may occur in a railway train took place tbe other night during tbe run of the express from Melbourne to Sydney. The under portion of one of the carriages caught fire, and it wa9 only after some time and at considerable risk that the attention of the engine- driver and guard could be attracted so that the train might be stopped. Tbe probable exDlanation is that the train ran through a gate, aud caught up some of the broken timber, which ignited by the friction of the wheels. That such things are possible, however, is not a pleasant revelation to nervous travellers.

The Bey. Mr. Gibb of the First Church, Dunedin, who writes to the Daily Times on the question prominent of late among us as to changes needed in the Presbyterian Church, explains that the failure com plained of is caused by tbe want of harmony between the creed of the Church and its actual faith. He proposes as a remedy a modification of i be creed by the admission of certain truths, which, he says, are not found in the Westminster confession — but which, nevertheless, are not inconsistent with the supreme authority of the Bible and the theology of grace. So says the Rev. Mr. Gibb, but what would the patriarchs have said by whom the Westminster Confession was drawn up 1 As to the fate of a Church whose creed mast follow the varying mind of its members, it is not difficult to predict what it mußt eventually be.

One of the products of the times in Melbourne— and not tbe least interesting to some people— is the defaulting bank clerk. In particular there are two of these gentlemen now missing, one of wbom has carried off with him a sum of £7,000. The other has not been quite so fortunate from his own point of view, but has still succeeded in securing £2,00 J. We live in »go ahead age however, and if the bank clerk in some instances trie? to keep in advauce of the times, it is perhaps no more than we may expect. — The tendency of the century is to sharpen the intellect and to dull the moral perceptions.

A Baptist minister, speaking the other day at Hobart, rebuked his people as follows :— " Yes, some of our people have splendid amounts entered to their credit in heaven's ledger for the year 1888, bat be it said to their shame, a great majority have a column of threepenny bits. Sirs, I believe tbere is a ledger in heaven, and when some of us are publicly told there by the recording angel that we gave Sunday after Sunday the amount we would throw to a passing organ grinder to get rid of him, and we hear our Lord say, ' inasmuch as ye did it t j one of these, ye did it unto me,' I wonder how we will feel." The sublimity of this utterance is quite beyond the range of comment. Bur, at least, let some excuse be made, for example, for Lord Byron's rather profane picture of the recording angel using up both his wings in quills. The calculation aa to threepenny bits in the heavenly courts would seem an operation Bomewhat of a similar kind,

Mr. John Dillon arrived in Hobart from Melbourne on Thursday April 18, where he met with a cordial welcome. He was received at the Town Hall by the Mayor and delivered a short address there to about 800 people. On the evening of Easter Monday he addressed a crowded audience by whom he was enthusiastically applauded. On Tuesday Mr. Dillon went to Launceston, wherj his success was quite as marked as at Hobart, and on Thursday morning he left for Melbourne, Tasmania having duly honoured in his person tbe cause be represented.

The Mother Mary Joseph, a venerable member of the Order of the Sisters of Charity, died at St. Vincent's Convent, Sydney, on April 20. Bhe had been for forty-nine years a uun, and was the first received into the order in Australia. She leaves behi id her a memory abounding ia good works. — R.I.P.

A great naval depot ia in the courae of erection on Garden Island in Port Jackson. The extensive woiks are in great part made necessary by the arrangement that all the repairs and refitting of the fleet defending the Australian coasts are to be carried out there.

The fates seem to be contending against our mails. The R.M .S t lonic returned to Lyttelton on Monday evening, her crank shaft having broken on the 4th inst. in long. 168 W., lat. 52.12 S. The Sasßengers bear high testimony to the manner in which Captain lidley, the commander of the vessel, handled his ship under the difficult circumstances.

A lively ritualistic contest is taking place at Kempsey, New South Wales, between the incumbent of the Anglican church there, and his congregation. The weapons of offence on the part of the incumbent, are lights on the altar, vases of flowers arranged in crosses, crosses on the candles, and other decorations of the kind, by which the Low Church heart is sorely stricken and wounded. The weapons of defence for the most part seem negative, but at the same time likely to prove effectuil, as they consist ia a stoppage of Balaries and collections. But such are the delights of private interpretation, the incumbent preferring his Bible with adornments, and the congregation desiring to have theirs ob plain as possible, while tbere is nobody to judge between them. An appeal has been made to the Bishop of Graf ton, but his Lordship will probably get out of the matter as undecisively as possible. One of the charges, by the way, laid to the incumbent's account, is the rather funny on« that he had asked the people to pray for the Bishop of Lincoln. Do tbe congregation think this delinquent past praying for, or what is the value they set upon their prayers ?