THE DEVIL AT LEVIN.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2468, 5 April 1909, Page 2

THE DEVIL AT LEVIN.

A “HOT TIME” PROMISED

There is trouble at Levin over a lecture on “The Devil” delivered by the Rev. M. Spencer at a local public school. An “Indignant Parent” in tho course, of a long and strongly worded letter of protest thus describes what is alleged to have happened:— “The lecturer talked to the children about sin and the devil, and to frighten tho little innocents he took one boy and laid him out flat on a table, lie then proceeded to show how the devil bound his victims by winding the boy round in cotton threads, lie showed the little children how helpless they became when the devil* got them in his power. He afterwards took off the supposed cords, and, rolling up the cotton in a hall, put it in the boy’s moxxth. There were other things this rev. visitor did, hut which at present I need not touch upon, which, ought hot to:, have been brought before children. . . . I, for one, as father of a family, emphatically protest against this Bible in schools teaching if such men as the Rev. Spencer arc allowed to lecture again. "He has. given out to the children that he will lectxxre next time on the flames of hell. If he is allowed to do so the school, committee will get a

hot time. . . If there is any more devil business in the Levin school there will be a scene if two or three of us get to know when the flames begin to burn!” . ’ - ' ‘ ■ The Horowhernia “Chronicle endorses, these: statements and calls upon the School Committee and the Education Board to “put a stop to . any clergyman using our schoolhouses in the way the .Rev. Spencer did on Friday afternoon last at Levin.” The “Chronicle” also alleges that to lay a boy out on a table and bind. him with cotton threads to represent how the devil binds his victims is an act boardenng on insanity.