MAORI BISHOP

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 85, 20 October 1928, Page 30

MAORI BISHOP

(From "The Post's" Representative) LONDON, 7th September. "Tho Record" of 29th August refers to the appointment of the Eev. I. A. Bennett as Bishop of Aot.ea-roa, and remarks: . . "This appointment of a racial or language Bishop is a wise innovation which might well be imitated elsewhere. Why should not.a Croc, or at least a man with Indian blood in his veins and speaking Cr'ee, be appointed to supervise, the Indian Missions in Canada? Mr. Benentt's name does not convey tho idea of his Maori ancestry. It should be remembered that two or three generations ago it was not uncommon for Native converts to assume- English names, taken from some missionary or other white man. Thus the full-blood-ed African slave boy Ajai became Samuel Crowther, the first West' African Bishop; and Bishops James Johnson and Phillips were also of unmixed African descent." . Then, with regard to the alteration of the Book of Common Prayer and the provisions of the Bill, the comment occurs: "In these provisions it should be notpd that the. standard of the present Pia'yer Book is insisted upon, that the greatest deliberation is to be exercised in making any change,'and that in the final tribunal, to decide the question of doctrine laymen and cler.gy are to rank equally with tho Bishops. Contrast this'arrangement with the episcopal autocracy exhibited here at Homo!"