DR NELLIGAN ON ANGLICAN CHURCH GOVERNMENT.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume xxix, Issue 7241, 29 July 1907, Page 4

DR NELLIGAN ON ANGLICAN CHURCH GOVERNMENT.

5 In a recent book entitled " Churoh and Empire," published by Messrs Longmans, Green and Co.,'fit London, witn a preface by the Archbishop of Canterbury, one of the essays is written by Dr Nelligan, Bishop of Auckland, who has many interesting remarks on the Anglican Church of New Zealand. He says : '' The Church as a body corporate has no ascertained science of mission, no Intelligence Department, no Bureau of Information, no Colonial or Foreign Office, no war carrespondents. The whole thing is utterly haphazard. . . . We get so dreadfully parochial and small. We want a good deal less academic respectability and a good deal more piously practical enterprise ; less talk about ' our historic Mother Church,' and more knowledge of the geography and history of the continents aiid islands where the daugher churches live. If the children in our Sunday and | day schools knew more about Hannington, Patteson, Field, Selwyn, Brough- j ton, Tyrrel and other. Empire-builders of the Church, the accuracy of their knowledge with regard to the names, of the kings of Israel and Judah, and the list of places in the Pauline missionary journeyings might safely be left unascertained without endangering the Christianity of our children, but with tho certainty of improving their conception of Imperialism. . . We want definite churchmen in tho colonies, _ but there is no room for men with 'frills,' fads or ' party ' ideas. We want missionaries. .. . The average country settler does not care two pins about the parson's ' school of thought' ; he does care about the parson being a man like himself, and that he should be a better man because he is a parson. . . . The Anglo-Saxon Churchman is not a Latin Churchman, and never_ can be made into one—for which praise be ! But a Federal Council (for mission work) will help the supporters of the great societies to read their support in terms of Empire. That is the thing that is wanted, and the accomplishment of it should not be beyond the wit of man."