CHURCH CONGRESS.

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 17607, 9 November 1922, Page 5

CHURCH CONGRESS.

ADDBESS BY AECHBISHOP. • (SFECIAI, TO " THE PRESS.") DUNEDIN,! November 8. In the course of his eloquent address on the forthcoming Church Congress, at the Early Settlers' Hall, Archbishop Julius mentioned that he was "only a youngster" at the time the first Congress was held in England in the year 1861, and he did not remember it, but he did remember what the Church in the Old Country was like. He knew of the meagre means of communication which exigted then between the various hamlets. At one stage of his life he was a vicar in a county parish in Somerset, and he recounted a case where one old gentleman had lived all his life in one place. "He was only ten miles from the sea," said the Archbishop, "and ' only a small hill separated his gaze from it, and yst this old gentleman had never been to the top of that little hill." The Oiurch, continued the Archbishop, had suffered owing to the fact that every parish was simply a little unit. Then the Church began to realise that a grave responsibility rested upon her unless she expanded, and it was then that a Church Congress was thought of. That Congress was responsible for gathering the people from all parts of England. There were men of widely different opinions ou the one platform. They prayed together, they sang together, they read papers, and they gradually developed that growing spirit of those who were bringing about such important and improved changes in the Church. That conference had a great value, as it brought Church people together, and the people began to see that something was more important than their own little universe.