MARSDEN CENTENARY CELEBRATIONS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLV, Issue 128, 30 May 1914, Page 18

MARSDEN CENTENARY CELEBRATIONS.

(Communicated by tbe Centenary Committee.) Christmas Bay will be the hundredth annivej-sary of the lirst Sunday on which Divine service was held in New Zealand, and it is proposed to mark the even I by a special series of commemorative services and gatherings. 'Phe centenary celebrations will commencp on Friday, December 11th, when there will be a large public meeting in tlte Auckland Town Hall. On L'hristm-as Day there will lie a celebration of the. Holy C-oui-union at or near the (Marsden. Cross, when the liishop of Auckland, all the Maori clergy of the diocese, and _ls many of tho other clergy as caii be spared from their parishes, wiil be present. A special feature of the celebrations will be the Church Congress to be. held in Auckland on February 8-th, !)th, and 10th, invitations to which have been sent to the leaders ol" the Anglican communion throughout. and specially to tho leaders in Australia. The subjects set down for discussion include-.— "The Old Testament, the New Testampnet in Relation to thp Person of Christ," "The liible and Evolution," '"The Ministry."' "lle-l'nion," "Mo<leni Heresies,'' "The Church and the Family," "tMen's Duty,'' ••Missionary Work and Problems.'' The Congress will sit in the. mornings from 10 to 12, in the afternoons from 3 to 5, and' in the evenings ifrom 8 to 10Auefter the CongTess, on the evening ot Wedneesday, February 10th (about midnight), a special steamer will leave Auckland to take any members of the Congress, or others desirous of going, to Russell and other places of interest iv connexion with the landing of Marsden and the establishment of Christianity in New Zealand. In order to bring the celebrations within the reach of everybody in New Zealand, special .services will be held on Christmas Day in every Anglican Church throughout tie Dominion. In addition, it has bpeai resolved to appeal for a special thanksgiving _u_k_ of £20,000 for educational purposes, andl a further scum of not less than £30,000 for augmenting the stipends of the clergy. It is hoped that the celebrations will be o. a national- character, since our oceupeamcy of New Zealand is in a large measure due to the labours of Marsden and other early misesionaries. But for these labours it is doubtful if the treaty 'of Waitangi would ever have ibeen signed, and in that ca_se the Dominion would, in probability, have passed into the hands -of France. And Marsdeo has a ,peculiar claim on the egratitude of those outside the Anglican communion, seeing that, though he was a devoted son of the Church of England, he was, nevertheless, always ready to give liberal help to the work of other religious bodies, lie ead\-aneed £750 towards building a Presbyterian Church in j Sydney, and he presented the Wesleyans with a valuable piece of land on which jto erect a church at Windsor. Maresden and his companions laid the I foundations of a great work— a. work [for Geod and a work for England. It. is ; for us. their descendants, to show our j gratitude by helping r-i the best of mil I powp r the extension of tiie \ve-,rk <c< well and tiulv laid one hundred years [ago.