BAY SERVICES.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume LIII, Issue 2768, 1 May 1903, Page 2

BAY SERVICES.

TO THE EDITOR,

Absenoe in Christchurch having prevented attendance at the Easter meeting, you will oblige by allowing me to give my views as to above. It has always seemed to me that onr friends in the country are most unfairly dealt by. Akaroa monopolises the Vicar, helping itself to three Sunday morning ser , vices per month out of four, and all the evenings. To the country we throw one morning and tbe afternoone which do&'b suit us, and we don't trouble ourselves in the least whether they suib the farmers. Each Easter we pat ourselves on the back for having found the greater part of the stipend in return for the lion's chare, and crmplain loudly of the Bays for not having paid handsomely for the crumbs thrown to them. Farmers work from dawn till dark through the dairying seaeon, with scarce an hour's intermission, so exacting are the calls of dairy work, and, aa the cows regard not the Sabbath, so it is no day of rest with the farmers. Their case then calls for special consideration in regard to hours of service. Cleaning horses and traps, themselves and children, and going several miles to service up and down the ranges —anything from 500 t* 1000 feet—means neglect of farm work and a continuous hurrying all that would make all attending it in anything but a fit state to benefit from the service. In epportioning the Vicar's services, I submit that the Bays are entitled to first consideration, and that Akaroa people who have but a few hundred yards to walk i«nd are favoured with asphalt p-.ths and lighted streets, should give way. Le Bon's has, of all, been most h«rd:y Ferved, has never had but a monthly service, which is altogether too long, and the more so as it often becomes too often a bimonthly through bad weather Improvement in country services is to be found in using moonlight nights, and in Akaroa's relieving the Vicar by availing itself more of the lay reidera who have ever willingly given their services. Many years ago Archdeacon Lingard gave services in German Bay, which were so much apprecia ted that the school was always crowded, and it was moist gratifying to fee parents and children Attending with such evident pleasure. But it is the more lamentable to htive since seen the yorng iv the Bay wholly neglected. Before drawing up the service?, it is to be hoped thcfc the Vicar will take counsel with the many good churchmen in ■Men Bay and see if tholr needs cannot be met by a fairer division of his time as beLiveon town and country.—l am, etc.,

W. H. HENNING