METHODIST GROWTH.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 865, 11 July 1910, Page 8

METHODIST GROWTH.

IN AUSTRALASIA. A CENTURY'S DEVELOPMENT. An interesting review of tho rise and development of Methodism in Australia and New Zealand is given in the Adelaide "Register," apropos of the meeting of the Methodist General Conference in that city.

A Church of England chaplain—tho Rev. Richard Johnson—conducted the first service in Australia beneath the trees at Sydney Cove, on J anuary 27, 1788, and it was seven years before any church was built. Twelve years later Mr, Johnson was succeeded as senior chaplain of the settlement by the Rev. Samuel Marsden. It 3812 Thomas Bowden arrived to conduct one of the schools established by the Government, and in his house the first Methodist class meetings was held in Sydney on March 6 of that year, though Mr. Eagar had probably held a similar mooting at Windsor even a little earlier. It' was Bowden and another schoolmaster — Hosking—who were responsible for the introduction of tho first Methodist missionary—the Rev. Sainuel Leigh.

The long ridbs Mr. Leigh was obliged to make in the summer, and the toils and frequent privations to which he had to submit reduced him to extreme weakness. The Rev. Samuel Marsden sent and told him that in 1814 he had established some . lay- settlers in New Zealand. He offered Mr. Leigh a free passage if ho would go there for a while and minister to the settlers while recruiting his health. The Rev. Walter Lawry arrived from England in May, 1818,. and shortly after iilr. Leigh embarked for New Zealand. When he reached the settlement, ho found that the laymen heid meetings for prayer, but were not allowed to preach, and in the intervals of the secular employment they had little time to teach the Natives. He formed the villages into a circuit, and made a plan, to which the lay missionaries attached their names. Thenceforth they conducted services in each village every Sunday. Soon afterwards Mr. Leigh returned to Australia. The Primitive Methodist Church began its operations in Australia by sending the llevs. J. Wiltshire and J. Rowlands to Adelaide in 1840; four years later the Rev. R. Ward went to New Zealand.

The English Wesleyan Confßrence of 1854 formed the Australasian and Polynesian missions iuto a separate conference, and the R«v. W. B. Boycc was appointed the first president. The Rev. John A. Manton was elected secretary at the sessions in Sydney in January,, 1855, when 40 ministers were present,' In 1873 the i administration was divided among the four annual conferences of New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, and New Zealand, under a General Triennial Conference. At the first General Conference in 1875 lay representation was adopted, on an equal basis with ministers, except in relation to purely pastoral business. In the General Conference of IS7B the laymen took part in all the business. Central missions wero subsequently established in the State capitals; a Twentieth Century. Fund aggregating rnoro than £100,1)00 wero raised; and boys' and ladies' colleges were founded or enlarged in the several States and in New Zealand. The first step towards Methodist union whs', taken in the Commonwealth in 1888, and by 1902 all the Methodist denominations merged into ou& as the Methodist Church of Alistralasia, excepting that the Primitive Methodists in New Zealand alono still hold aloof. Tho first General ConfcrenceA of the United Church was held in Melbourne in 1904, under tho presidency of the Rov. Dr. I'itchott. Tho United Church returned in round numbers 100Q.> ministers and homo missionaries, 100,000 members, 550,000 adherents, and 200,000 Sunday scholars. Thus the Methodist Church constituted about 12 por> emit, of tho population, of tho Commonwealth and Dominion. The second General Conference was held in Sydney in 1907, and tho third is that now in session in Adelaide. There are now 1265 ministers and home missionaries, 165,000 members and junior members, 678,000 adhorents, and 228,000 Sunday scholars.