A Hasty Cleric

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXV, Issue 43, 24 October 1907, Page 22

A Hasty Cleric

There is a clergyman in .the North- just now whose feelings must ,be black and blue. Adopting the exparte and panic views" of a precipitate orator beyondthe water, the reverend gentleman, wrote- to the Mayor of Wellington (the Hon. T. Hislop)':— ' I heartily endorse the statements of Mr. Dooson, of the Federal Senate, when he declares that Keir Mardie deserves hanging.' TTie ' Post ' publishes the Mayor's reply.- It runs as follows :—: — ' I hope you will pardon my delay in replying to your kind note of the 7th. I should like if you will supplement your kind attention to me by sending a photograph" of yourself. I will then frame your noteand photo in order that the note may exemplify to my friends the humanising, influence which the profession of Christianity has had upon one of its 'votaries, and so that the photograph may render familiar tne features oi one who has studied to such advantage the Christian rules as to judging and extending charity to others so beautifully set "forth in your letter.' For all its serene placidity, Mayor Hislop's lay sermon was dynamite.