Good-wiil Voyage Of Southern Cross In Commemoration Of Centenary

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 15117, 28 October 1949, Page 2

Good-wiil Voyage Of Southern Cross In Commemoration Of Centenary

MELANESIAN MISSION VESSEL'S ARRIVAL IN TAURANGA TOMORROW

Tomorrow morning at 8 o'clock, the Melanesian Mission's mm vessel, Southern Cross VII is expected to berth at Tauranga in Cft tinuation of a good-will voyage in commemoration of the center?" of the mission. The ship might well be contrasted with the scoot. Undine, of 21 tons, in which George Augustus Selwyn, first Bishop of

Nev; Zealand sailed 3000 miles in I 1849 to obtain recruits from those I then little known. Western Pacific | islands, for his church. ! During the ship's stay in Tauranga, the Right Rev. S. G. Caulton, Bishop of Melanesia, will preach at the morning services at Holy Trinity Church. At the evening service, Archdeacon H. V. Reynolds, who will also attend the service at Mount Maunganui at 3 p.m:, will give the sermon. A colour film of life in Melanesia will be screened after evensong, and also at 2'.30 p.m. for the benefit of the Sunday School children. Tentative arrangements have also been made for visits to the ship. Leaving Tauranga at 8 o'clock on Monday morning the Southern Cross will sail for Whangarei, her last pert of call before returning to Auckland, preparatory to returning to the islands about November 21. Throughout the century the Mission has had close and intimate ties with this country. Indeed, in many respects it has been a New Zealand sponsored Mission (writes Eric Ramsden in The Evening Post). The present Southern Cross was dedicated in 1933, and reached the Pacific that same year. Fcr nine years she carried out useful work. 80,000 Islanders In 1942 the vessel was made available to the Royal Australian Navy, and was not returned to the Mission until four years later.

Baddeley was decorated bv th« i , President Roosevelt. late After 14 strenuous years in n, tropics the Bishop returned to En land, after being succeeded in lofo by the present Bishop th P r; ? 8 R , e A \ 1 ?-, Caulton ' afo^erS oi Auckland. ean The war in the Pacific had a mn disturbing effect on Melanesia TV Japanese, apart from the actual ri struction of Mission property settled many of the natives nj' result of the unrest has been th! movement known as "Maroh»! Rule." Though it differs inTo£ respects in different localities <?a Bishop Caulton, its chief attitude u one of passive opposition to Govern ment control. Adherents are n 0 o" sessed by a strange and crude fannt icism difficult to dispel. Native Independence '•Marching Rule" is not hostile to the Church. lu But it has created difficulties in some of the schools, and has pi aC pri a burden on certain of the nath clergy. "We can best assist th(ie people, says Bishop Caulton "hv teaehmo- them the Christian duty of subjection to lawful authority, which in this case is protective and in nn way repressive; also by helping them to see that their development vvil be best assured by remaining under tutelage rather than by premature independence, especially as their idea of independence is that isola ■don which they enjoyed in the past and which can never return."

The native population in the mission's sphere is about 80,000. 01' that number 28,000 people live in villages where there are resident church teachers. More than 22 ; 000 are baptised. There are, however, still 35,000 heathens in those islands. Though George Augustus Selwyn began what is now known as the Melanesian Mission just a century ago, and obtained the first recruits for its ministry, the first Bishop was John Coleridge Patteson, who was consecrated in Auckland in 1861 and destined to die just ten years later, a victim to the native law of revenge for atrocities committed by "black-birders" on the island of Nukapu. Patteson did not die in vain. His martyrdom directed world attention to the horrors cf the slavers, perpetrated upon Polynesians as well as Melanesians, so that prompt action was taken to clear the South Sea of "black-birding," as that nefarious practice was known. A Martyred Bishop Patteson was followed by John Richardson Selwyn, the son of the first Bishop of the Anglican Church in New Zealand, who served from 1873 until 1891. Bishop Cecil Wilson, his successor, was consecrated in Auckland, and remained in the field until 1911. Then came Bishop C. J. Wood, Bishop J. M. Stewart, Bishop F. M. Molyneux, and Walter Hubert Baddeley, • the seventh Bisi In 1932. Mu,. ' ° nioneering work had

It is a fact that, but for the evangelising work of the Mission the lives of thousands of American' and other troops in the islands would have been lost, during the Pacific war. The natives rallied to the Allied cause in a manner that surprised many observers, and performed often perilous service. Many a survivor from an aircraft, or a soldier stranded on some island shore, was astounded to receive succour from an essentially Christian native community. Language Expert This was not the least important aspect of the work of those who laboured in the Melanesian Mission. Such men as the New Zealander Rev. Dr C. E. Fox, who has been in Melanesia for nearly half a century and is recognised as one of the world authorities on the intricate languages of that region, have performed valiant service. The health of the people is, of course, still a serious problem. The Mission maintains three hospitals and two leper colonies. In all, there are 36 European workers in the field 79 native clergy, and more than 700 teachers. The Mission is now entering upon a second century of disinterested service. The problems that confront it are just as serious as those which its founders encountered. The Western Pacific is a changing world. Any primitive people brought within the orbit of civilisation must necessarily find themselves swept along at a pace disturbing to mental equilibrium.

by then, i !xu;i accomplished. Bui upon Bishop Baddeley fell a most difficult task. With his staff, on the invasion by the Japanese in 1942, he remained at his post, taking refuge in the hills of wild Malaita. For his "exceptionally meritorious conduct" Bishop

The problems of present-day Melanesia are those of the adolsecence of a race. What will happen in the Western Pacific in the next decade will have its effect upon other large sections of people in that vast'ocean. New Zealand cannot ignore such developments so close at hand.