THE BISHOP’S OFFICE

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 257, 27 July 1936, Page 10

THE BISHOP’S OFFICE

Heavy Responsibility in Growing Church SERMON BY CANON JAMES “In commending the bishop-desig-nate again to your prayers I have taken for a text that protest of St. Paul—a protest which must inevitably arise in the mind of any man called to an office in the ministry of the Church of God, and most surely, as it is here, the highest office: ‘Who is sufficient for these things?’” said Canon Percival James, who preached the sermon at the consecration.

“I need not speak here of the origin and authority of the episcopal office, or remind you of its functions,” Canon James continued, “but this I would impress upon you, that henceforth Bishop Holland must bear the burden of an indivisible and incommunicable responsibility, the discharge of which must tax all the powers of which he can be capable only by the every-present help of the Holy Spirit of God. The task of a modern bishop is at least as heavy as his predecessors have borne at any time, and nowhere is it heavier than in the growing and developing church of a young country like this.” More obvious to the eyes of those who judged from the outside were the practical tasks of the bishop’s office. Day after day there was laid upon a bishop a mass of work and business, and sometimes drudgery—a prosaic round of routine sufficient to fill, and often more than fill, the working hours of the ordinary man of affairs. In ruling his diocese he must supervise the complex processes of church government. Not only did he preside over and guide the chief councils of the church, but there was much more reserved for himself alone. Day by day he must weigh arguments and balance considerations; he must make decisions and assume the responsibility for them. There was no movement, no society in the church of the diocese, that would not look to him for counsel and inspiration, and oftentimes for the word that hade them go forward. The one person upon whom so great issues depended had need of courage, sober judgment and wisdom; he needed patience, tender forbearance and largehearted sympathy. If he was to pursue his way undazzled and undismayed he needed humbleness of mind.

In the person of a bishop was vested supreme authority in things spiritual. He was the visible representation of the original commission given by Christ himself to the shepherds and pastors of His flock. That commission the elected bishop did not himself assume; it was passed on to him that day by his elder brethren, the, bishops of New Zealand. He was the one representative person who linked the local church of the diocese to- the historic church of the ages, the universal spiritual society which was meant to include the whole company of Christian people. Even if he wished to do so, he could never divest his office of the authority and significance that the church had always attached to it, and attached to it still. Never henceforh could he be unmindful of this representative character; never could he make public utterances except as a bishop of the Church of God. He stood apart and alone —the chief witness of the Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ. “Who was sufficient for these things?” St. Paul answered the Question from the teaching of his own experience. He had proved that there was an unearthly Power at work that could more than compensate for the insufficiency of mortal nature. NOTABLE OCCASION Address by Bishop in Jerusalem “This day registers) a notable occasion in the life of this city and diocese, the importance of which none will deny, and the possibilities of which no one will measure,” said the Rt. Rev. G. F. Graham-Brown, Bishop in Jerusalem, in a sermon at St. Paul’s Pro-Cathedral last night. “It isl a day when the unseen bands which unite us with the Church triumphant have been strengthened,” continued the bishop. “All the members of the Church in this diocese, in the Church throughout New Zealand, and in the vast Anglican communion the world over, have had a share in and bear a responsibility toward this consecration.”'

Bishop Graham-Brown described Bishop Holland as a man who bad devoted himself not to a career but to a cause, and had made truth convincing to many by his life and personality. He knew of him at Oxford as a leader, an athlete, a sportsman, a scholar and one whose career was distinguished in every field of endeavour to which he applied his energies. He combined leadership and comradeship with an unfailing sympathy, a deep knowledge of the affairs of the world, and an even deeper understanding of the will of God.

Bishop Graham-Brown recalled tha: the first Bishop of New Zealand. George Augustus Selwyn, took part io the consecration iu England of the first Bishop in Jerusalem nearly one hundred years ago—a fact that was of particular interest to himself as the sixth Bishop iu Jerusalem.

Speaking of his own consecration to his present see, the bishop said that in addition to representation from nearly every area of the Anglican communion and the presence of representatives of tbe churches of tbe East, the Old Catholic Church sent its representative, the Bishop of Haarlem, in Holland, to lay his hands on his head. It marked the first Anglican and- Old Catholic inter-consecration, and all Christians accepted the validity of Old Catholic orders.

The Anglican communion, said Bishop Graham-Brown, strove to combine the truth of tradition and the truth of science, to be apostolic, catholic and free to preserve the great discovery of an ordered ministry episcopally directed, constitutional in action, federal in organisation. In practice, the Church rejected none who loved our Lord in sincerity and truth, and by its ineradicable tolerance it was making possible that recovery of the pure teaching of Christ which was the one hope of the world. The services of the Church, when loyally and intelligently rendered, be they simple or unrestrainedly ornate, were without rival for beauty and truth. The Church’s spirit had made tbe descendants of that small island of Britain the pioneers all over the world

of tolerance and freedom, of justice and fair dealing. YOUNG PEOPLE’S RALLY A rally of young people of the Church of England to mark the consecration of the bishop-elect, was held at St. Paul’s Pro-Cathedral yesterday afternoon, when the church was filled with Bible class students and others. The sermon was delivered by the Bishop of Nelson, the Rt. Rev. W. G. Hilliard.