The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1890-12-27
Honolulu. December 20. 1890.

|
Ny LORD: We beg to acknowledge
the receipt OF YoCr Lordship's letter
dated December 18th in reply to ours oi
| November 14th referring to your notice
| changing the hours at which the Second
Congregation have for FIVE years been
| accustomed to hold divine service in the
| cathedral.
We do not admit that your notice is in
| accordance with the terms Of the sche-
dule Of December 4, 1885, which actu-
ally contains no provision, expressed or
implied, authorizing such changes being
made without consulting, or ascertain
ing the wishes of either the Cathedral or
the Second Congregation.
We altogether deny the allegation
that since the resignation OF Mr.. Wal
lace, or at any time, had a process of
undermining the Cathedral congrega-
ton been practiced. If the services
which you term Cathedral parochial
have suffered depletion" it is obvi-
ously because the services and ministra-
tons Of the Second Congregation are
held to be, by the great majority of
Anglican worshippers in Honolulu both
resident and occasional, as more accept
able than any other available.
1t is more than probable that many
persons accustomed to the ministrations
of Mr.. Macintosh from their childhood
have followed him when he took charge
OF the Second Congregation. Most OF
them he has baptized, has taught, has
solemnized the marriages amongst them,
and has inferred the remains of those
who have departed from among them.
No new course of action whatever fol-
tnt t,ar n N,1
The matter of answering or refusing to
answer the set of questions you circu
lated does not belong here. No person
who read those questions can wonder at
the general refusal to reply to them.
We entirely repudiate the assumption,
novel as it is, that the Cathedra, con-
gregation is in any sense the parochial
congregation; if it be so, let your school
and household be left out of account,
and the remainder of the said congrega-
ton ne taken as the representatives or
fruits of the eighteen years you refer to,
it must be acknowledged that there is
little to destroy, even supposing, which
is not to be granted, that the second, or
more truly the parochial congregation,
had such an object in view.
Your LOrdship's motion that the time
parishioners of st. Andrews in their
parish church, and for maintaining the
dignity of the church as Cathedral, by
an attempt to enforce unwelcome and in
convenient hours for service upon that
which is unquestionably the de facto
parochial congregation, is only another
instance of the strange blindness which
seems to affect Your Lordship in all
matters relating to the administration of
the diocese, in the way of cultivating the
goodwill Of the great proportion of the
clergy and laity.
The doors OF the Cathedral during the
services of the Second Congregation are
open without distinction of rank, or
language, or color, with this difference,
however, that the present incumbent of
the care of the Second Congregation is
the only priest in the diocese capable of
efficiently ministering to Hawaiians in
their own language. and the only one
known to them, in Oahu, in domestic
ministration.
We propose to ask the opinion of
counsel as to the right assumed by Your
Lordship to arbitrary change the hours
of worship, and shall, much as we regret
the scandal, be prepared to carry the
question before the Courts of the King
dom.
The friction which you refer to existed
long before Mr.. Mackintosh's appoint
ment to the Second Congregation, before
Mr.. Wallace's arrival in the diocese, and
was in fact the occasion of the existence,
as such of the so-called Second Congre
cation. (Signed)
II. MAY. "aruehs'
NJ. P. Robinson. H. w. Mist, f. w.
Jordan. d. Berry, J. w. Podmore, Chas.
Crozier, Jno. f. Gilfillan, Sidesmen.