PRIMATE’S CAREER

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 119, 13 February 1935, Page 10

PRIMATE’S CAREER

Episcopal Silver Jubilee Celebrated FIDELITY TO CHURCH Special .services which were held ill Auckland on Sunday in St. Mary’s Cathedral to commemorate the silver jubilee of the episcopate of the Most Rev. A. W. Averill, D.D., Primate of New Zealand, were very largely attended. The primate celebrated the twenty-fifth anniversary of his consecration as Bishop of M'aiapu on January 16. and it was 21 years on Sunday since his enthronement as Bishop of Auckland in St. Mary’s Cathedral. The archbishop celebrated Holy Communion in the morning, and at a later service Archdeacon G. MacMurray, emphasising the importance of fidelity in the Church, paid a tribute to the .primate’s characteristics. The primate, he recalled, bad come to Auckland in responcs to an appeal, and he had served in an exacting position as few could have served. The primate was the speaker at the evening service. Duty and Service. “My dear friends, may I express first of all my deep and sincere appreciation of the kind thought that lies behind the service in this cathedral, and may I thank you for the prayers and intercessions on my behalf,” stated the archbishop, prefacing his sermon. He added that it was a happy coincidence that the anniversary should have fallen on Sunday. He thought he had been helpful to the Church and to the community, and it was right that a bishop should help the community as well as the Church. The archbishop recalled that his consecration as Bishop of M'aiapu was in the cathedral at Napier, destroyed in the earthquake. There had been a request for him to come to Auckland, and he had felt that he should leave to take up the more arduous work. Two bishops had broken down under the strain, and he came to Auckland under a sense of duty. He had not regretted doing so, and never would. The archbishop said there might in these days be an underestimation of the worth of a sense of duty, but not until self was overshadowed by a sense of duty, and, still better, by God’s will, could the real joy of service be known. From a cursory glance over the past years, everything seemed to have changed. Only fwo parishes in the Auckland diocese were served by the same vicars as in-1914. DUNEDIN NUDISTS Gymnosophy Club Falls > Through IN SPITE OF HEAT WAVE Dominion Special Service. Dunedin, February 12. It might be expected that the heat wave would tend tc stimulate the activities of the Gymnosophy Club, but inquiries made to-day failed to reveal any information as to continued existence of the local organisation. One former member- who was approached said that he thought the club had fallen through, and that he had had no information of its continued activity. A gymnosophist is defined as one of a sect of ancient Hindu philosophers of ascetic habits who \wore little or no clothing, denied themselves flesh meat, and gave themselves up to mystical contemplation. They were known to the Greeks through the reports of the companions of Alexander..