PRESBYTERIAN JUBILEE.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 59, 11 March 1926, Page 8

PRESBYTERIAN JUBILEE.

ST. PAUL'S, DEVONPORT.

The Masonic Hall, Devonport, w as crowded last night on the occasion of the social reunion of past and present members of St. Paul's Presbyterian Church, held in connection with the diamond jubilee celebrations. The minister of the church, the Eev. R. S. Watson, presided and announced that the collection taken last Sunday to reduce the debt on the church had amounted to £110. He read greetings from Father Furlong of the Catholic Church, who is at present a patient in the Mater Misericordite, and from the ministers of all the other churches in Devonport. The meeting- felt much sympathy for the reverend Father who was ill and whose church .adjoins their own. When the chairman asked any to stand who had been present at the opening service 60 years ago, no one responded, but when he asked anyone present to rise who remembered the old church being opened, Mr. J. C- Webster, formerly town clerk of Devonport, rose and said he was live years old at the time, and remembered the old building being erected. Mr. Webster's statement was received with loud applause. When Mr. Bennett, the veteran organist rose in response to a request to do so he met with an ovation, as it was many decades since he had first played at church services on the North Shore. Mr. Pat McCallum 4 now of Mount Albert, and the son of a* former minister, the Rev. A. M. McCallum, had been connected with the old church first erected, first as a SundaySchool scholar and later as a member of the church.

The Rev. George Budd, who •was" the chief speaker, referred to the fact that the Rev. R. M. Ryburn, who had opened the present church ten years asro, had once been a Sunday School scholar at old St. Paul's. He referred to the fact that Captain Macfarlane and Mr. John Frater, two of the old members of the community, who were both in their 96th year, were members of St. Paul's, and that they had many members who were well over four score years of age. It was to be regretted that Captain Macfarlane, who had weathered so many storms and who possessed such a wonderful constitution, and who. till recently, had shown such splendid activity was now suffering from a rather severe illness. It was interesting to recall that the first Presbyterian services held on the North Shore were conducted by the Rev. George Brown, who still lived at Onehunga and was nearing the century mark. He had done wonderful work in the early days. He used to pull across to Nbrthcote in a rowins boat, and then walk lonjr distances all over the sparsely populated countryside, holding services wherever he could get a few worshippers to meet together. In giving some figures in connection with the church, Mr. Budd said that the change which w.-is troiug on in our colonial towns was shown when it was stated that over 300 people had joined St. Paul's in ten years, but 257 had gone away, so that there was a net pcain of 43. There had been 170 marriages solemnised, and what way strange, the baptisms were the same. It had heen commented on that families wore not so large as they were half a century ago. The sum o£ £15,000 had been collected during the decade for church purposes, and that this prosperous state of affairs would almost make the Mayor's teeth water when lie thought how the ratepayers liad turned down the municipal chambers scheme.

The Rev. Hunt, Mount Eden, offerer! congratulations on behalf of the Auckland Presbytery. The Fvev. Marshall, minister at Belmont, and Captain Humphrey, of the Salvation Army, and Mr. T. Lamont, Mayor of Devonport, also spoke. A splendid musical programme was pone through; the Misses Stewart, Muriel Barr, Olive Lloyd, and Messrs. Jack Kilgour, Bennett and -Ashwortli took part.