REV. ANDERSON JARDINE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 200, 24 July 1937, Page 9

REV. ANDERSON JARDINE.

LECTURE AT BALTIMORE. BALTIMORE, July 22. Lecturing for the first time in the United States, Rev. Anderson Jardine said the Duke of Windsor was driven from the Throne by an ecclesiastic, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and “a grandmotherly, person” called Mr Baldwin.

“Fixture generations will read of an Archbishop who cursed instead of praying,” he said, “of a shrieking, demented priesthood and one little cleric who obeyed his conscience and gave the exiled King-Emperor God’6 blessing. “History will vindicate what was done in England, sealed in France and worked out in a chaotic, hate-driven world.” i “I believe the Duke of Windsor is too big for one nation or empire. The world needs him. He is the' only man capable of steering the nations to peace.” The audience of 500 was apathetic.

Ror. Robert Anderson Jardine was formerly vicar in the working class parish of St. Paul’s, Darlington, in the Durham diocese. Learning that tho Archbishop of Canterbury had warned that any clergyman conducting the marriage ceremony at the wedding cf the Duke of "Windsor .would be dismissed and holding it unthinkable that any member of the Royal Family should be married without a religious ceremony, ho wrote to tho Duke and offered to conduct the ceremony for him. The offer was accepted and the ceremony performed.

Mr Jardine had been for ten years at Darlington. When be loft college he ignored his father’s advice that he become an actor and at. 19 joined a mission in the slum centre of Liverpool, winning the title of “The Poor Man’s Parson.” Ho then did mission work in the Shetland Islands, returning to become a leader in the AntiPopish Free Church _ movement. He did further mission work, this time among the miners, and was then appointed to the rectory of St. Paul’s, Darlington. Never afraid to express his opinions, 1 1 c advocated a trade union for clergy, calling them , 1 the most hopeless and de.enco.css lot of people in the world.” In 1932 he was publicly rebuked by the Bishop of Durham lor preaching in a AVcslcjan chapel. Mr J. A. KensitT leader of tlic Protestant Truth Society, has described him in the following words: “Ho is quite fearless in his advocacy of any cause which he judges right, and would pursue his own line without regard of the consequences to himself. Ho iA a first class preacher. His work as a minister is of the Nonconformist type and he is an outspoken platform preacher.”