CHURCH HISTORIAN

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 56, 15 September 1928, Page 6

CHURCH HISTORIAN

REV. VV. T. WHITLEY VISIT OF BAPTIST MINISTER The ltev. W. T. Whitley, a prominent minister of the Baptist Church and tlio author of a number of works on ecclesiastical history, who is now on a visit to Xuw Zealand, arrived in Wellington from Auckland yesterday. lie was met. and welcomed on arrival by the Key. I<\ 15, Harry, an old fellow student at llawdou College, who will be his host while the visitor is in this city. Dr. Wliitley was for ten years the head of the Baptist Theological. College, Melbourne, but for the last twenty-five years he has resided in England, paying frequent visits for educational and research purposes to the Continent and America, ilr. Wliitley lias taken a prominent pa^t in the activities of the Baptist World Alliance, and-, attended the recent Toronto Congress, at which there were 7500 delegates for 05 couutries. Although he has spent a number of years iv Australia, tin's is Mr. Whitlcy's h'rst visit to New Zealand. ''It is a pleasrjrc to find a community and a country so strongly akin to the Motherland," stated Mr. Whitley, alluding to his fortnight's tour, of the North Island. "11l every town old acquaintances have come to revive happy manor ies, while utter strangers have come forward to show .plentiful hospitality and lay the basis of new friendships. After passing through Canada and the1 United States, there is a pleasant feeling of coming into surroundings where there is not the constant need to adjust and make allowance for different view-points. It is like home again." Mr. Whitley remarked that communications by road lire relatively more important in New Zealand than in England, but both countries seemed perplexed as to the future of railways. In the Dominion roads were engineered through gorges, up ravines, along crests of tumbled ranges, in a way that an Englishman admired with awe', while the daring and skill of the drivers demanded and deserved a great deal of trust. On the land, the distribution of the people was far more uniform than in Australia. There were signs of human work everywhere, small settlements, and towns with vigorous local life, even exemplified by local daily papers; wide school and church provision seemed also to have been made. In New Zealand there seemed to be no difficulty in transporting children for miles and securing them the stimulus of numbers and : emulation in their studies. Mr. Whit ley takes the keenest interest in education in al its branches. He said he had noted the great provision that was being made, for secondary education, apart from action by the State. Dr. Whitley will preach in Baptist churches on Sunday, and will deliver a lecture on "John Bimyan" at the "Vivian Street Baptist Church on Monday.