BISHOP WILSON AT THE CATHEDRAL.

Press, Volume LVII, Issue 10757, 10 September 1900, Page 2

BISHOP WILSON AT THE CATHEDRAL.

The Bishop of Melanesia preached at flrt Cathedral yesterday evening. There was a very large congregation, and a numb? of people were compelled to stand in tie aisles and porches. Bishop Wilson took his te*t from the 15th chapter of the Acts, "Then all the multitude "kept silence, and 'gave audienoo to Barnabas and Paul, declaring what miraclesjand wonders God had Wrought amongst the "Gentiles by them , ." In the course of his sermon lie said that the Apostle? had no doubt as to the expediency, bat considered it their absolute duty to" teach the Gospel of Jesu3 Christ. It .'was so strange to hear men, after the crisis in Chiray saying that it was a pity that Christianity was ever preached in~ China at all. So* would it nob be better to teach, them /nop Christianity in these places where men kill and torture each other as they do in ChinsIt is more Christianity they want, aot less. At the present time the poor gsople of Melanesia were groping after God, and finding Him not. Right through the Melanesia. , ? Islands the natives believed in unseen spirits, and were all worshipping tiie ghosts of their ancestors. It was the same with "then ativea of the Solomon Islands and the New Hebrides, and this belief gave rise to ff'rifo and slaughter. He had visited the So"* , mon Islands this year at a part never .visited before, and he came to 100 miles of coast where everyone had been killed; then they came to a settlement of head-hunters, three hundred people or so. They went anotbes eighty miles, and the whole coast had been ■ cleared. The Bishop then went on to 'tell of the progress that had already been vnafo m missionary work in these parts, in spite of their limited ni-eans and poor equipment.. Hβ pointed oufc what the Church of Jesos alone had done for her missionaries, ana what the Church here should do. First ol all he would ask the congregation to considei carefully whether these people should b* admitted to the Church of God and should have eternal life or not. Then they needed at the present time a newer and faster vessel of some 400 tons, in order that ihtf might go from island to island amongst thfts° h-ead-hunfcers. It was impossible to do the work with -the present vessel. Then, tie Churoh of Jerusalem gave their chosen men to go to the Gentiles. At the present time the Mission wanted twenty more n)en, id order to do the work properly. If God a with the Mission in the next twenty years as the last, fifty, .with, twenty jnore.men aiu. a new vessel,* , the Melanesian' Islands w twenty years would be Christian.

Bishop Wilson will deliver an address at St. Michael's Schoolroom this evening on the Melanesian Mission.