SPREADING THE GOSPEL

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 71, 24 March 1928, Page 18

SPREADING THE GOSPEL

AM ANGLICAN ADVANCE.

MISSIONARIES FOR NEW

GUINEA.

SUB-DIOCESE OF SO,OOO SQUARE

MILES.

In an area of 90,000 square miles of land in the mandated territory of New Guinea the Church of England has but one priest, who ministers to the spiritual needs of some 500 Europeans. The work of evangelising the natives has, up till the present, been In the hands of the Roman Catholic Church and the Methodist Church, but the area to be covered, and the new ground to be broken, are so tremendous that the missionaries of those bodies have been able to take the Oosped to only a comparative handful. For many years the Church of England has desired to make an advance into the territory, but financial resources stood in the way. Now, however, the English committee of the Melanesian Mission has obtained sufficient money to open up a station, and the work is to be commenced this year. Canon Noel Wilton, of Bathurst, is to be consecrated as a second assistant bishop of the Melanesian Mission this year, and he will have charge of the mandated territory, which includes over 1,000,000 square miles of land and sea. There will be no over-lapping, in so far as the work of other Christian missionaries is concerned, and hundreds of natives will receive the sacraments for the first time. The Rev. L. E. Cartridge, for three years a curate in the parish of Putney, and more recently chaplain at Hurstpierpoint College, England, is in Auckland, awaiting the sailing of the Southern Cross. He will be the first priest to minister in the new area, although the Rev. F. R. Bishop lias been stationed at Rabaul for some three years, serving the white population. Mr. Bishop is at present in England conducting a propaganda campaign, in order to enlist more fully the sympathies of church people in the new venture. It is thought that the consecration of Canon Wilton may take place in Sydney on Ascension Dav, but the date end place have not been definitely fixed. Fifteen Dialects Spoken. Tt is proposed that the Rev. Mr. Cartridge shall make his headquarters at Oasmata, but the bishop will most likely be at Rabaul, the capital of the territory. The two places are separated by a stretch of coastline which can be skirted in a schooner in 24 hours. Oasmata is visited by a steamer from Australia or elsewhere about once every six weeks, and a* Mr. Cartridge will be able to reach Sydney after only a week's travelling, he will not be nearly so isolated as some of his fellow priests in the Solomons. Some 15 different dialects are spoken in New Britain, and as Mota, the principal tongue of the Melanesian Mission, is not understood there, the work of making Jesus known to the natives will be no easy task. No attempt Jias been made to translate either the New Testament, the Book of Common Prayer, or the Catechism into any of the dialects. Mr. Cartridge anticipates that he will have to master "pidgin," so that he may make himself understood, and he will also attempt the principal of the 15 dialects. He hopes to buy a reasonably good schooner, in order to get about his far-flung "parish" more readily, and though he is no navigator he has the utmost faith in the natives, who are master mariners, and can almost smell a reef in the dark, so intimately acquainted are they with their coastline. In a year or two Mr. Cartridge may be joined by another young priest, who has promised to come from England. Interior Still Unexplored. New Zealand has no share, financially speaking, in this new venture of the Church. The whole thing is being financed from England. There is no need to establish hospitals, since that has been done very successfully by the Australian Government. Doctors at Rabaul have trained young Australians to do the work of medical patrols, and although those so trained are not qualified doctors they are uncommonly efficient. It should be explained that a patrol consists of only one man, but the system has proved adequate to the needs of the place. There is a splendid modern hospital at Rabaul. Mr. Cartridge, who has had no missionary experience, has been given particulars of his new sphere by Mr. Bishop, who was always ready to praise the work of the Australian Government. Valuable work has been done in the territory by the Department of Agriculture, and along the coast there are considerable areas under cultivation. The greater part of the Interior is still unexplored. So far as is known, the natives of the interior are not savage. Traders who have met some of them from time to time have found them of a fairly quiet disposition. There are some Government schools on the coast, all of which are doing good work, but the majority of the natives are unlettered. Only one-fifth of the whole mandated territory has been explored. Prior to the war, New Guinea was a German possession, and to this day most of the Roman Catholic priests and Methodist preachers are Germans. Mr. Cartridge says that the standard of the Melanesian Mission will be followed in New Guinea, namely, full Prayer Book teaching with the traditional use of the Church.