CITY MISSION

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 296, 10 September 1937, Page 13

CITY MISSION

A Haven For Thousands

ITS WORK AND THE FAIR

Enough meat is eaten in a year to load a rake of railway wagons; enough tea is made to float a pocket battleship ; enough bread is bought to teed a small army; enough potatoes boiled, mashed and baked to satisfy the appetites of 5000 ravenous Irishmen; and enough butter consumed to cover the produce of a dozen of the best Taranaki herds. Where?

At the Wellington City Mission men’s shelter and boys’ hostel. If Wellington people wish to know how some of their fellow citizens live, they should pay a visit, to that Taranaki Street haven for thousands. They would be surprised at the amount of work there is involved in preparing the usual day and night meals; astounded at the need there is for it all. They would be amazed to learn of the value attached to a pair of trousers, a bunch of flowers, a sack of potatoes, a pair of boots —-anythin -' for which there can be the slightest use. They would find ordinary household utensils being put to an astonishing range of usefulness of which their inventors never for a moment dreamed. And perhaps conscience might ask these people what they were doing for the other fellow. If it did, it. would be putting into plain language the motto of the mission: “Bear ye one another’s burdens and so fulfil the law of Christ.”

Late Rev. T. Fielden Taylor. The mission seeks to meet the most pressing needs of the poor—old and young men and women, boys and girls. New Zealand and Wellington in particular found its Good Samaritan and missioner in the late Rev. T. Fielden Taylor. He it was who conceived the idea of giving practical help to the other fellow. Already thousands have cause for everlasting gratefulness; thousands more will feel the same cause as his work continues after his death. Money, of course, as with many other objects, has been the big obstacle for the mission to leap. That it lias kept its head so well above water is distinctly a credit to those now conducting its affairs. There are periods in each year when the money tide flows far out. Then it is that the Mission Fair exerts Its pull. The number of poor never seems to decrease. Every day there comes some request for help. It might be clothes or a meal. Very often It is something surely as poignant as anything else to be found in this life. Hundreds of cases can be quoted similar to that related to ‘‘The Dominion” yesterday. One evening an officer of the mission called at a house—he found a crippled old-age pensioner sipping the last of her tea. On the table a candle flickered and on a newspaper serving as a tablecloth were the remains of what might have been called ir meal. The room itself was practically empty; a kerosene box served as a chair. This existence ,to her was life; cheerless, bleak and soul-sickening

Caro of the Needy. Men, utterly down and out, and others too weary of life’s troubles to care about, themselves —all have drifted either to the mission or the shelter. Then it was they found a hot meal worth a mint of gold. They found kindness and contentment and a share of the city’s comforts. Men on sustenance, boys on small wages, the parent mission cares for them. For half their wages they receive their board and meals. Old-age pensioners with their pittances consumed by rents and other expenses—they can have their six hot meals a week for 1/3. There are now 50 of them on the roll; and 100 men on sustenance pay their 6d. willingly for something warming and sustaining. Conditions of life have changed in this century, but there remain still the same old problems. To lead and tend to them, as he did, the late Mr. Fielden Taylor must have -possessed great gifts of adaptability and a readiness for adventure. Can it be wondered his name still lingers on. the tongues of hi 6 followers and HgSts their eyes with a gleam which has to be seen rather than put into words. ■ It is little wonder, too, that the fair which is to open to-morrow is called "Evergreen.” As a missioner, Mr. Fielden Taylor's work will live long in Wellington. Though he will be missed, his work is sure to fulfil the hardest test of greatness—survival. The mission must carry on, and it needs finance to meet the heavy demands upon its resources.