METHODIST ORDINATION.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVII, Issue 52, 1 March 1916, Page 2

METHODIST ORDINATION.

SIX MINISTERS ADMITTED. Six candidates were admitted to the Methodist ministry at an ordination service held last night in the Pitt Street Church, before a crowded congregation. Rev. A. C. Lawry, president of the New Zealand Methodist Conference, conducted the service, with the assistance of Rev. J. Dawson (ex-president), who delivered the charge to the candidates, and Rev. W. Baumber, of Nelson. The candidates were Messrs. M. J. Evans (Te Kuiti), G. B. Hinton (Tauranga), W. Lea (Huntly), J. E. Parsons (Otahuhu) and Chaplain-Captains W. Walker and J. R. Sullivan. Each was asked for, and gave, a statement as to his call to the ministry. Certain prescribed questions were then answered, and the ordination was completed by the laying on of hands, after which all the candidates received the communion. The musical part of the service was led by the choir of St. John's Methodist Church, Ponsonby, under Mr. Raynor White. The choir gave an excellent rendering, without accompaniment, of the anthem "Lead, Kindly Light" (Dudley Buck). In the course of his charge Rev. J. Dawson dealt with the many duties of the Christian minister, some joyous some distressing, and all urgent. The cloth, he said, did not compel respect; nothing but the minister's manhood could do that. More intimate fellowship and understanding was the greatest need of Christians in New Zealand to-day, and he felt that the Methodist Church was suffering in this way as much as the other religious bodies. There was thus much room for effort in the future.