THE CANTERBURY SETTLEMENT.

Press, Volume LXVII, Issue 20419, 14 December 1931, Page 15

THE CANTERBURY SETTLEMENT.

WORK OF THE PIONEERS. PROVINCE'S EIGHTY-FIRST ANNIVERSARY. Tlie morning service at the Christ- , church Cathedral yesterday was devoted to the commemoration of the 81sfc anniversary of the Canterbury Settlement. The service was attended by many representatives of the pioneer families and members of the Canterbury Pilgrims' Association, and by the Christ's College Cadets, who .paraded through the Square before taking their places in the church. A memorial wreath from the Pilgrims' Association was placed at the foot of the statue of John Robert Godley in the Cathedra) grounds. The preacher, Canon W. S. Bean, took as his text a verse from St. Mark: "Other men laboured, and ye arc entered into their labours." Emphasising that it was moml elevation and the development of ihe spiritual faculties which counted for everything vital in the world, Canen Bean Jirst considered, in general tei'nis, the debt of the present age "to the past. Every schoolboy knew what it cost the pioneers to found the province firmly, how nobly they suffered discomforts such as the present generation would certainly complain of. To the wisdoni and forethought of the earliest settlers, much of the enjoyment of the present generation was due j this generation

had joy because that one was intimately acquainted with sorrow. Influence of Great Men. What a good book might accomplish was even better accomplished by a good man, he continued. If there was any real good m the people of to-day, then the old masters of all ages had influenced their lives and helped to develop in them the characteristics of greatness. Man stood in positive need of a power outside himself, and these old masters testified to' the truth of the assertion that man could not live by bread alone. " "We are the inheritors of the fruit of all good lives in the generations of every age that are past and gone. We often exalt our refinement, knowledge, culture, Christian society, inventions. I sometimes wonder if we remember - that all these came to us from the sacrifice, study, sweat, and pain of thousands who have gone before us. As we enjoy these fruits, let us pay our debt to them by love and service and faithfulness." Faith of the Pioneers. Eighty-one years ago next Wednesday the first Canterbury pilgrims had viewed their new land from the bridle Eath. . It was true that those 81 years ad been packed with progress and achievement. The tussocky swamp had given place to a good and smiling city. If the shade of Edward Gibbon Wakefield could have surveyed the scene today. he could not be blamed for taking pride in the outward signs of the magnificent success of the Wakefield theory of colonisation. The plans made by Wakefield and his fellows had b<jen followed by tlioir successors. So far as they had been able to guido the present, the present had followed their directions. Thus to-dav the people of Canterbury liad good educational facilities, were adequately . endowed with public lanrls, and well-equipped seaports, and had full and easy communication with tho other provinces. These giants of the past had vision for their day, and for generations beyond their day, hut it was for the present generation to continue their work. "Our pioneers were strongly religious,** onded Canon Bean. *They

had faith and traat in a' living €FeJ» did not neglect His laws. God was a reality in their lives, Surely we will follow them in the nprightnepi of their lives, their devotion to duty, and their resvjjjjence for God and Hii Church. Our def>t to the past -is only paid by our love for God and by «ervicc to our follows."