AUCKLAND DIOCESAF SYNOD.

Press, Volume L, Issue 8621, 24 October 1893, Page 5

AUCKLAND DIOCESAF SYNOD.

ADDRES&BY BISHOP COWIB.

(ttiJtaa ASSOCIATION TBUEOfUH.) AUCKLAND, October 23. Tho annual meeting of the Anglican Diocesan Synod was held to-day. Bishop Cowio delivered an exhaustive address, of which the following are tho salient points t •—*' It would be well for the Bynod to consider tho proposed change (namely, women voters lit parish meetings) dm ing tho prosent session if the time at ov\r disposal admits of our doing so. I think there ia reason to hope tnat tnero will soon be a consensus of a majority of tho Christian population of New Zealand in favour of a aohemo for the teaching of Holy Scripture in our Board school!}. I haw often stated iv Synod my conviction that it would be better to have a book of selections from the Old and New Testaments such as tho great majority of parties would approve of, to bo read as a lesson book in school hours, than that many of the children should grow up without any Bible teaching at all. The pension fund capital on June 30tli amounted to £13,397, having increased by £370 during the year. We have at present fourteen Maori clergy. The number of unpaid lay readers in tho diocese ia 146. The contribution of our Maori congregations i:> the Northern Archdeaconry to church purposes in 1892 amounted to £403. With regard to Melanesiau Mission matters, &c, iv a letter received by mc fromßishopSelwyn, he says, ' Cannot you s;et some rich New Kealamier to found a scholarship with us (»*.<"., at Sehvyn College), for sons of the Now Kealand clergy. It would help thorn and be a link.' The training of candidates mc holy orders is one of the most important nl&ttera that can occupy tho' attention .'of our Synods. Happily &t our Provincial College of St. John's*, young slew have, good educational opportunities. With tlio tuition of the Warden they ought not to iind it difficult to pass tho examination hold annually under the direction of the Boards of Theological Studies, and with his tuition and hat of the Professors of our Uuiversity College, our students may as a rule bo expected to graduate at the University of New Zealand. It is not in the matter of teadning that our theological students are at a disadvantage as compared with tho undergraduates of Selwyn College or any other College at an Knglish University. In my own undergraduate days at Cambridge students had not nearly as much help in their studies, either for tho Arts Degree or for the University theological examination, as our St. John's College students receive. It is, however, the absence of College life with its grout bonotita, intellectual and social, that is the great want in the University or thoological course in cities of Now Zealand, and I do nob soe how this defect in our circumstances ia to be remedied. It is often said that there should be one central college for our theological students, and not a separate college for each dioceae, co that our candidates for holy orders might have the advantage of daily intercourse with their fellows in a larger community, where great benefit would be derived mutually by the interchange of opinion and the cherishing of the spirit of toleration and large-hearted* ness which is not commonly the characteristic tone of small and self-contained societies. To attain this objeot was, I have no doubt, a main purpose of Bishop Solwyn in making St. John's Colloge a provincial and not a diocesan institution. Moreover, the College was not intended for the education of theological students exclusively. It has been due to the special circumstances of our people that) the great majority of the foundation scholars hitherto have been candidates for holy orders, but the New Zealand diooesn would not, or could not, be content with a Provincial College. The expense of the voyage to and trom Auckland froth the southern cities prevented many parents from Bending their eons to St. John's College, and in some dioceses it was thought better to retain the etudents at home under the eye of their own Bishop. The absence of students of the lav/, medicine, and for the Civil Service and commerce generally from our College is doubtless » great drawback to its efficiency as a training school of our clergy. Such is the state of the case, and we must make the beet wo can of it, Spartan nactus e$ hanc eaama. I* is not, however, tho clergy only who iitffer loss by this isolation of our theological etudents. It is a very serious reflection that our laymen are being educated apart from the influence of the systematic! teaching of Christianity as it can still be received at the old Universities of * Great Britain and Ireland. Lα any case the prevailing ignorance of modern discoveries of Biblical scholars, especially among the great and conservative section of Christendom in all lands is fraught with danger. Earnest men become acquainted unexpectedly with a scheme, a wellestablished fact, that is nob in harmony with their hereditary religious belief, and their faith in the teaching of the Bible is thereupon shaken, or they find that A teaoher, who has been deemed an authority on theological subjects, has displayed ignorance on matters outside his special department of science. Ho consequently loses confidence in his ordinary teaching. Much harm has been done in all ages of the Church by the enforcement of unauthorised theories of inspiration. Men of devout mind have felt, and still often feel, that they are bound by what is known as the mechanical theory, to put a literal interpretation on the statements of Genesis, and they are distressed to hear the narrative of Noah's Ark Bpokea of as an allegory. Such lovere of tho Old Testament overlook the fact that allegory was the ordinary garb of moral teaching in Palestine in primitive times. The full of man consequent on deliberate disobedience to the known will of God is the revealed truth recorded in the third chapter of Genesis, &nd the certain punishment of the disobedient and the safe-keening of Uod'seer* vont is the teaching of the flood in the sixth and two following chapters of that book. I have thought it well to say these few words concerning the teaching of tho book of Genesis." A resolution was passed by the Diocesan Synod recognising the conspicuous zeal and ability with which Bishop Hadfield had served the Church in New Zealand for ball a century, and praying that he might be spared to assist it by hia experienced counsels, and, with Mrs Hadfield, enjoy health, rest and peace in hie declining years.