ANGLICAN RELICS

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 123, 25 May 1923, Page 10

ANGLICAN RELICS

SHOWN AT CHURCH CONGRESS.

In the gymnasium of Christ's College, where the principal meetings of the Church Congress are being held, a small but interesting collection of relics of early Anglican days in JSew Zealand has been got together (states the "Sun"). , , , The items include church vessels and tho like,, old letters, photographs, books, pamphlets, and other documents, laken as a whole, it is small enough almost to escape the notice of a casual- visitor, but the faded, old-fashioned writing upon the manuscripts and the pictures of little old churches, now long demolished, bring back much to the imagination. Most prominent are two ponderous candle-sticks of oak and brass, with shafts made of two intertwined spirals. They-.are. Nearly 3ft in .height. lhey were brought to New Zealand in 1850 by the Rev. Thomas Jackson, who was at one time bishop-designate of Christchurch, but was uever consecrated. 1 Lying near is the primatial cross of the Right Rev. H. J. C. Harper, first Bishop of Christchurch. It is beautifully made of silver, inlaid with semi-precious stones of red and green. A small brass processional cross, iv label states, was originally in use at Kaiapoi, and was one of the first used in the Christchurch Diocese. It was lost for some years, and afterwards was given to St. Michael's Church, but, being too small, it was given to Holy Trinity Church, Lyttelton. On the wall above aro old engraved portraits of Bishop Selwyn and his wife, anda rubbing of the memorial- brass erected to Bishop Harper at Eton. There is a quaint old wooden medicine chest, used by some of the early missionaries, and a miniature chalice and paten formorly bolonging to the lato Archdeacon Govett, _a veteran minister among the Maoris in Toranaki. Perhaps most interesting of the documents is a letter and a portion of a journal kept by 'John Coleridge Pattoson, the martyred first Bishop of Melanesia. A printed copy of the sermon preached at his consecration is also shown. The pamphlets include a copy of a charge delivered by Bishop Selwyn to the New Zealand Synod at Auckland in 1847. A large broadsheet deals with, a meeting held in "England while the Canterbury settlement was being planned. A copy of portions of the Scriptures translated into Maori by the Rev. William Williams, and printed in 1835, is included among tho books, as is a complete Maori Prayer Book, dated 1840-41. This last book contains an inscription showing that it was presented by Mr. Williams to Bishop Selwyn. A copy of the petition addressed to the Archbishop of .Canterbury, . praying that a bishop be consecrated for Christchurch, appears beside the address presented to Bishop Harper on his retirement in 1890. The photographs include views of old churches, including the unique one erected by the Maoris at Otaki- in 1849-51, and decorated internally with wonderful carving, reed-work, and painting. The_ collection suggests that it would be well if a small space were set asido in each Anglican cathedral for the display, permanently, of relics of the church arid the diocese.