CHURCH NEWS AND NOTES.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIV, Issue 212, 5 September 1903, Page 2 (Supplement)

CHURCH NEWS AND NOTES.

Another anonymous donor in England forwarded to the Anglican authorities early in July the sum of £5000 towards the erection of a new church at Palmer's Green. The Archbishop of Canterbury, reply ing to a correspondent early in July said that the endeavour to reintroduce the observance of Corpus Christi into the Church of England Is, in his judgment, contrary to the spirit and teaching of the Church. _ .- At a meeting presided over by Bishop Gore early in July it was decided to establish an ordination candidate fund, for the diocese of- Worcestershire. The Bishop said that there was a serioii3 dearth of clergymen in Birmingham, and if a hundred were added they would only be moderately supplied in the vacant parishes. The Rev. Canon Julius, who has been resident for some years at North Rock; hampton (Q.), has accepted an appointment to a parish near Christchureh (N.Z.). Canon Julius arrived at Moreton Bay in 1808, and was a teacher for many years in the Rockhampton State and Grammar Schools, until 1881, when he was ordained.

The top-stone of Ihe central tower of the Truro Cathedral, England, was laid early in July by Mr S. M. Dennis, son of the donor, of the tower, Mr James Dennis, of Greenchurst Park, Surrey. This tower will cost about £15,000..and when £14,000 more has been raised the two- western towers will be erected, which will complete the Cathedral. The net results of the "Daily News" Religious Census for London, now concluded after seven months' inquiry, is that (allowing for "twicers") only 10 per cent, of the entire population attend any place of religious worship, and that out of 1,002,940 who on the average have done so each Sunday, the Church of England is responsible for 430,153, while the various bodies of Nonconformists agEfegato 416,2?5. The Rev. B. W. Marten, of New Zealand, now on a visit to the Old Country, has spokr-i to the ecclesiastical correspondent of the "Chronicle" most hopefully of.the tendency towards union among the evangelical denominations in the colony. The union of various Methodist churches is likely, Mr Marten thinks, to pave the way for an. amalgamation of the Presbyterian and Metho dists. and he anticipates that in time all the Non-Episcopal Churches in New Zealand and Australia will unite in one great Protestant Evangelical Church. letter 1 its vividness, and justifies some of' its strongest statements.

"Church Bells," in its issue of May 15, has an illustrated interview with Dr. Wallis, the Anglican Bishop of Wellington, the three scenes of colonial life being taken from bush life in the North Island, instead of the somewhat overdone views of alpine scenery or ugly streets in townships. Amongst other striking Bishop reminded the interviewer that his diocese has almost exactly the same area as the whole of Wales,, but with a population of only 161,000, all told, as against the million and • a half of the little Principality. The Bishop admits the severe hardships that settlers in bush country have to meet with for the first few years, but he says that no one need Btarve, and for wage-earners the hours are shorter and the pay better than in England. He has sixty churches in his diocese, about 54 clergy, and eight missionaries, and besides services within church buildings there are regular ser vices in seventy or eighty church-rooms or State schools. Add to that an army of unpaid lay-readers, three or four of them licensed in every parish, a irystem which works admirably. Speaking of the proposed cathedral at Wellington, the Bishop said they were biding thejf time before beginning to build, so as to make sure whether it would be safe to build in brick or stone. After giving a short outline of the effective system of -church government which has grown up in the colony —a question that is now painfully prominent,in the Old Country, thanks to a few disloyal fanatics of each extreme party —Dr. Wallis spoke in terms of highest praise of the financial system started in the diocese of Wellington by his predecessor. The result, he says, is most satisfactory, the parishes paying the stipends to a central fund, and the Synod- fixing and paying the stipend of each parson. As to this it strikes Old Country churchmen that if only a similar system could be introduced into England what a wholesome reform it would be. Owing to the gradual shifting of centrps of population in England in the course of centuries, it is often the case now that the best stipends go with least work, and the worst stipends with most work, and it would take an Act of Parliament to alter this state of things one jot!-Happy the country that has no State churchbut here we have historic buildings, and at all costs they must be maintained and safeguarded against profanation. The Bishop's remarks.on secular education in the New Zealand State schools, and the co-operation of the Anglican with other religious bodies, to get some modification of the hard and fast rule, are of special interest' just now to English readers, as the division between the Anglican Church and those that dissent from it as to the control of Stat? schools, was never wider or the feeling more bitter than it is at : the Drescnt moment. . I