PITT STREET CHURCH.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 234, 3 October 1931, Page 11

PITT STREET CHURCH.

EIGHTY-EIGHTH ANNIVERSARY.

ADDEESS BY CANON FANCOURT.

At Pitt Street Methodist Church tomorrow the eighty-eighth anniversary of the opening of the first Methodist Cburcb in Auckland will be celebrated by special services. The Rev. James Boiler was the first to break ground in Auckland for what was then known as the Wesleyan Church. He held his first services in an old sawpit in Mechanics' Bay, and later the first church was opened in High Street. It is now part of the Deeds Office. As residents moved further out, with the growth of the town, the building and site were sold to the Government. The present church in Pitt Street was erected in 1860, during the ministry of the late Rev. John Warren. It has since been considerably enlarged, in order to meet the requirements of the congregation and Sunday school.

At the morning service to-morrow, the Rev. A. Meßean will preach- There is to be a musical festival in the afternoon, at which an address mil be delivered byCanon W. Faneourt, of St. Mary's Cathedral. The minister in charge, the Rev. W. Walker, will preach in the evening. An old folk "at home" .and Methodist reunion has been arranged for Wednesday afternoon. Mr. J. W. Shackelford, who this year will complete 50 years' memoership of the church, will preside. In the evening the annual anniversary railj is to be held. The Rev. Samuel Marsdea. of the Church Missionary Society, who started a mission to the Maoris ax the Bay oE Islands in 1814, invited the Rev. Samuel Leigh, a minister of the Wesleyaa Church, who was in Sydney, to come over and work amongst the Maoris. Mr. Marsden later also induced the Rev. John Hobbs, another Wesleyan, to start a mission north of Auckland, so it is peculiarly fitting that i Canon Faneourt, of St. Mary's, should de- ' liver the address at the gathering to- ■ morrow.