ANGLICAN CHURCH

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 23, 27 July 1934, Page 5

ANGLICAN CHURCH

MISSIONARY RALLY

NEW ZEALAND SOCIETY

There was a large attendance in the Blue Triangle Hall yosterday afternoon for the opening session of the missionary rally conducted by the New Zealand Church Missionary Society. Following a hymn and prayer, the Rt. Rev. Dr. T. H. Sprott, Bishop of. Wellington, delivered the opening address. Bishop Sprott said that the Church Missionary Society was the largest Anglican Missionary Society in the world, and was of peculiar interest to the Dominion. In 1915 it had the largest number of medical missionaries of any society. He was afraid, however, the present generation did not in the least realise what New Zealand as a colony owed to the society. Among all colonies New Zealand stood in special relation to missionary work. So far as he knew colonisation began in the other possessions of the Empire before the advent of the missionary. New Zealand stood alone in that the missionary preceded colonisation by'a considerable time. It was not until a good many years after the. arrival of the first missionary that any serious colonisation by. Englishmen began. Bishop Sprott referred 'to the work of Samuel Marsden, the first missionary, and said that once missionary work really began it went ahead by leaps and bounds. A tragedy occurred, however) during and as the result of the Maori wars between 1860 and 1866,: when certaiu Maoris withdrew from the Christian Church, not because it was Christian but because it was English. Since then the Maoris had been slowly coining back, but they had not all returned yet. .'■■■:■ He thought the work in New Zealand was the, best achievement of the early years of the society. An interesting address >v "Casto and Outcast" was given by Miss Z. A. Sowry, of. tho Dornakal Diocose, South India, who said that in the early days in India outcast people were converted, and toda; there were 150,000 outcasts in the church, and during the last ton years 20,000 caste people had been baptised. • If casto and outcast people came •,- together in Christ, she- said, untouchability would go. A lantern lecture on the socioty's hospital, in Hangchow was given by Nurse V. Bargrove. She said that the hospital was, tho biggest in China, It had 425 beds, a staff of five English doctors, six resident Chinese doctors, six English .sisters,. . twelve Chinese graduates, and 70 pupil- nurses. The hospital was opened- in 1871 as a small opium rofuge with fifteen beds. Today it had general medicine, surgical and medical, and v very largo out-patient department, in. which last year 42,000 people were treated. A rickshaw, ride of half an hour from the city there were two leprosy hospitals, two tuberculosis hospitals, two isolation buildings, and a convalescent-home. These institutions were branches of tho main hospital. ■ . An address on tho special work being clone in Maori mission houses was given by Miss tee, of the Maori Mission, Lovin. Miss Leo appealed to the public to try and gain a bettor understanding of tht- life of the Maori. Miss A. M. D. Dinncen, formerly.of tho Diocese of Hunan, China, spoke interestingly of the work in that district. During tho proceedings afternoon tea was served.^- . :