NOT ALLOWED TO WED.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 56, Issue 99, 7 February 1936, Page 8

NOT ALLOWED TO WED.

THREE YOUNG MISSIONARIES. WORK IN INLAND AUSTRALIA. Three young missionaries of the Methodist Church in the Australian outback asked the Methodist Inland Mission Board recently for permission to marry, and the Board, because of lack of funds, was compelled to refuse. The missionaries are stationed at Wyndham, Camooweal and Mount Isa. The Board was very regretful that such a decision was necessary, as it had been freely recognised that a man could do better work in the inland if he had a wife, but the men were only allowed £225 a year, and it was said that a- wife could not be kept on less than £350 a year. In addition, the Board would have to build homes and furnish them. The Rev. T. C. Rentoul, superintendent of Home Missions, said the Board had intended building up a fund to enable some of the missionaries to marry, but development in the inland had made it necessary to employ extra men, with the result that all revenue had been absorbed. It woidd be to the advantage of the mission for missionaries to be settled in some place with a parsonage and a good wife. Such parsonages would then he headquarters for travelling missionaries, some of whom covered 300,000 square miles of territory. Through the wife and the home, agreeable contact could he made with the settlers’ womenfolk. It was impossible for a patrol padre to have a wife with him, as each padre was constant l.v travelling. Mr Rcntonll added that it was hoped that within five years the Board would be in a position to allow some of the men to marry, but it the outback continue! to develop, more men would have to be provided before wives were sent out. It was possible that those men who wished to marry girls in tlieir borne States would be recalled and appointed to churches in less remote areas, where the difficulties of keeping a wife and making a home would not be so great.