WORK AMONGST SOLDIERS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVIII, Issue 157, 3 July 1917, Page 6

WORK AMONGST SOLDIERS.

ANGLICAN CHURCH EFFORT. £5,000 WANTED FROM AUCKLAND. The effort that is being made liy the Anglican Church in New Zealand to raise £ 10,000 for work amongst the Dominion troops in camp and at the front was inaugurated—so far as Auckland is concerned —at a largely attended meeting held in the Diocesan Office today, the Bishop (Dr. Averill) presiding. Mr. R. W. Simpson, of Timaru, who is touring New Zealand as honorary organiser of the fund, explained in detail the work which the Church is now doing for the New Zealand troops in the training camps in England and on the French and Egyptian fronts. The sum of £10.000, he stated, had been set down as the minimum that was required even if only the most pressing needs were to be met. Canon P. T. Williams, who was recently invalided from the Egyptian front, made a strong appeal for funds for assisting the chaplains abroad. Demobilisation, he stated, was expected to take at least two years, and it was probable that many of the New Zealand troops would be sent to camps in Egypt for some months before returning home. It was necessary, therefore, that provision should be made for the comfort and spiritual welfare during demobilisation as well as up to the declaration of peace. The meeting unanimously decided to take steps to raise £5.000 as the contribution of the Auckland Diocese. Up to the present about £5,000 has been collected for the fund in -the South Island, and in Wellington and Waipu dioceses, including £I.JOO that has been contributed in Hawke's Bay and Gisborne during the past few weeks. The effort carries the authorisation of the General Synod, and suitable arrangements for the control of all funds sent to England have already been made. It is proposed, if sufficient money is forthcoming, to build rest huts at the New Zealand base in France and at other points and to ertend the Church's work In the firing line, the New Zealand hospitals in England, and the training camps in the Dominion.