CONGREGATIONAL CONFERENCE.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1204, 12 August 1911, Page 4

CONGREGATIONAL CONFERENCE.

$ The Conference of the Wellington District Congregational Union which took place on Wednesday and Thursday last proved very interesting from several points of view. The Congregationalists have had a very decided influence in the development of modern religious thought, and have produced quite a number of leaders whose influence has extended far beyond the boundaries of their own denomination. They have always stood for freedom in general, and in particular for the liberty of the individual congregation a3 against centralised control. Indeed, some of the most loyal Congregationalists have of late come to the conclusion that this spirit of independence has been carried too far and there is at present, to use the words of a distinguished member of _ the Congregational Church, " a distinctly marked centripetal movement tending to more sympathetic association arid united action." At the outset the chairman of the Conference (the Rev. W. A. Evans) laid stress on personality as the key-note of the gathering, and declared that they had not assembled to consider academic or intellectual problems, but Christian work in its various aspects. Tho Conference refrained from the discussion of "burning questions," and if on that account its proceedings wore less exciting than they might otherwise have been, the meetings were probably more effective in their real usefulness. The Rev. D. Hird had much that was interesting to say in his paper on the New Testament idea of the Church. He no doubt gave expression to a important aspect of the matter in his emphasis of the danger of allowing mere external organisation to lake the place of the unity of the spirit, but he would probably lie one of tho last to contend that in a question like this, round which controversy has raged for ages, there is nothing to be said on tho other side; indeed, he admitted that greater efficiency might be gained by increased co-ordinaton in Church work. Without mistaking uniformity for unity, one may be pardoned for doubting that Christendom in its present divided state fulfils the New Testament conception of tho unity' of the Church. Other papers, such as that on the enrichment of services and the relation of tho homo to the Church; were also interesting and instructive. The Rev. M, Bowden Harris's remarks in the latter paper on the responsibilities of parents for the religious up-bringing of their children were particularly timclv. There is a tendency at present to hand over the entire moral education of tile rising generation to the State, tho Sunday School, and the Church, while the parents who are primarily responsible too often act as if their duty ends when they have clothed and fed their offspring.