THE ANGLICAN MISSION.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 13870, 22 October 1910, Page 8

THE ANGLICAN MISSION.

r A prominent Englishman who lived 1 from the sixth decade of the eighteenth *• century until the fifth decade of tho nineteenth, declared that the' trans- - formation of the Church of England .• was the most wonderful phenomenon ■» his long life had seen. "And yet," r said Mr G. W. E. Russell, commenting ! on this a few years ago, ,: Mr Gron<c %-ille died while the Church was still s 'in a condition which, compared with - ' the present day, was a condition of 3 ' lethargy as to performance and 1 " twilight as to learning. Cast in i •' increasing measure on her oivn rei •' sources, the Church has displayed a - 'fulness of life and a creative vigour l "which her most fervent disciples of t •' sixty years could scarcely have t " conceived." The presence in Chxisti church of the Anglican Mission has ? ieminded us of these passages. That r so many missioners should come across r the world to help their brother clergy 5 in this remote corner of the Empire is . a proof of the Church's vitality and of > its self-sacrificing devotion to its great - -aork The missionary spirit in the • Church of Eugland is a comparatively

modern growth, and in no other ressnee* do?s the Church to-day differ yo much from the.. Church of ; a hundred years ago. when zea!. unci ; particularly its evangelical manifest?.- i tions. were looked urr.n as dangprou? . snd scarcely respectable. In spite of the cynicism, the doubt, and the de- I vction \o pleasure of our time, there : is ninrh real enthusiasm far true ; Ciri tin tv arson; a'l tla ;e of pocie.y, '. strciviihening and spreading faith, ;ind ! preaching man's duty towards his \ The appeal of the Xew ' Zealand Church for help from ; the Mother Country does not j indicate failure, but rather that i a scanty and very hard-worked I I ministry is unable to take full ' ! advantage of its opportunities. From j all accounts the mission ha« already ! i amply justified its existence. Its pro- I gross throughout the North Island has | ■ lioon marked by a genuine, revival cf ; zeal for religion, and we feel sure that i Canterbury, which is linked so closely jto the Church of England, will not Ibe behind other parts of tho Dominion in its response to the appeals of the niissioncrs.