FOREIGN MISSIONS COMMITTEE

Evening Star, Issue 18263, 1 May 1923, Page 9

FOREIGN MISSIONS COMMITTEE

A SOCIAL TO PROMINENT WORKERS.

A social to do honor to tho Rev. Professor Hewitson and Mra Hewitson, the Bev. A. Don and Mrs Don, and tho Rev. H. H. Barton and Mrs Barton was given by tho members of the Foreign Missions Committee of the Presbyterian Church in the Stuart Hall. • The Rev. G. H. Jupp heartily welcomed all present, making special reference |o Mr and Mra Barton, who had recently returned from their visit to our mission fields in China and India, and to the other guests of the evening, including the Rev. '■ F. G. and Mrs Bowie, of the New Hebrides. He then presented to Hewitson and to the Rev. A._ Don handsomely engrossed and bound copies of the minutes adopted by the last General Assembly in regard to'their services as convener and secretary, respectively, of the. Foreign Missions Committee. Referring to Mr Don, tho Convener said that he had been connected with _tl» foreign mission work of the Church since 1882. He had gone to China in 1879 to learn the language; In 1882 he had settled in Riverton to minister to the Chinese there; and in 1886 he had been transferred to Lawrence, where ho had been ordained as a missionary. He had spout many years among the Chinese in Now Zealand. Since then he had been foreign missions secretary for nine years. Tho highest tribute that could be paid to anyone was that given by the Chinese formerly resident in New Zealand on the occasion of Mr Don’s recent visit to China —"Oh, is it Yeso (Jesus) Don?”—the Mr Don who had preached Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Referring to Professor Hewitson, Mr Jupp said that after twonty-one years of service as convener he had set a standard difficult to be reached by those who came after him. Mrs Hewitson had been a tower of strength to him, and his niece, Miss Winnie Rule, who for years had been his typiste, had rendered invaluable service. ■

Professor Hewitson acknowledged with very great gratitude the kind words spoken by 'the chairman, and endorsed so heartily by the meeting. Mr W. H. Adams, a member of the committee for twenty-one years, presented to Mr and Mrs Don two comfortable easy chairs from the committee. The speaker said that he had known Mr Don for thirtyeight years, since the days of the old ‘ Presbyterian,’ and he was as keen on commas and semi-colons in those clays as he was now; and, as ono of the printers said recently, “He hasn’t come to a full stop yet.” Mr Adams said that he had been 'in Chinese dwellings in tho neighborhood of Cromwell, and had noticed how tho faces of the Chinese lit up when he

was introduced to them as a friend of Mr Don. Undoubtedly Mr Don’s work had « made it much easier for our missionaries in the Canton villages. Mr Adams concluded by referring to the help Mrs Don had rendered her husband throughout the years. In thanking the committee on behalf of Mrs Don and himself, Mr Don remarked that he hardly recognised himself in the descriptions oit his eulogies. “ You have put A.D. on the coves of the volume,” he said in reference to the hound copy of the Assembly’s minute, “but you haven’t put what year it is!” (Laughter.) His farewell had been a long-drawn-out one, but it was none the easier on that account. He was saying farewell to Dunedin—far and away the most beautiful city he had ever seen!—to the Foreign Missions Committee, a body of men and women with whom it had been a great honor and privilege to work. He bad been nine years foreign missions secretary, and he would rather be F.M.S. for another nine years than Moderator of the General Assembly for only one! The foreign mission work was entering upon a new phase in India and the East generally. To bo in the great conference at Shanghai a year ago was to him like being in anew world. The Chinese, for instance, were demanding their own translations of the Bible —done by Chinese. Throughout the East they were aiming at a truly indigenous Church. The old patriarchal order of things had passed away, and must place to the fraternal. Mr Don paid a striking tribute to the retiring convener, Rev. Professor Hewitson. He had had the privilege of meeting many of the most notable missionary leaders, but it was Iris conviction, which others shared, that the convener, if he had been in a great country like America, instead of in a little country like Hew Zealand, would have been in the very forefront of missionary leaders. During the evening' songs were sung by bliss Rule and Miss Astbury, and a pianoforte duet was rendered by Miss Gladys Flamank and Miss Astbury.