The Pulpit

there have been some noble utterances in this colony on the relation which the people occupy, or ought to occupy, to the land on which and from which they must live. First and foremost stands my friend the Rev. W. T. Carter, who from pulpit, platform, and press has continually and outspokenly condemned the manifest injustice and wickedness of the page 3 existing institution of private property in land, and the social inequalities to which it gives rise. All honor to him. He was the first, in this colony at least, to recognise the duty of ministers of religion to deal with political and social questions, and to feel, to use the language of the Rev. Dr. Fairbairn, that "religion ought to be secular, and would be all the more spiritual and eternal for so being." Our thanks are also due—and on behalf of this Society I tendered them—to the Rev. W. Roby Fletcher, who durimg the past year has delivered two powerful addresses on the religious aspects of the Land Gospel. From his known earnestness and ability, his love of humanity, and from his position as head of the Congregational Church in South Australia, we have much to hope. The late esteemed pastor of the local Congregational Church, the Rev. B. N. Ferine; the Revs. D. Paton, Scots Church, Adelaide; S. E. Gibbes, Church of England, Mount Pleasant; S. Howard, Baptist, Gawler; F. Richmond, Church of England, Koolunga; and other clergymen have also publicly taught the gospel of land nationalization, and this Society has received letters expressing sympathy with its objects, from other ministers. Nevertheless, we cannot but deplore the very limited response to the appeal made to ministers of religion by this Society.