CHURCH MEETING.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XXII, Issue 1322, 24 November 1864, Page 4

CHURCH MEETING.

A meeting of the parishioners was held on t day evening, at St. Michael's Schoolroom tu" meeting, which was rather numerously attend i , many influential persons, was convened lor ti pose of considering the expediency of letting Imr " tion.of the seats in the new church of St J, |' 1 f ' or " Evangelist, now in the course of erection in \ '?• t,|fc Square. ,At,D >tr The Ven. the Archdeacon of Olirhtehurrl, sided, and amongst those present were the foil J' 1 ""' clergymen and gentlemen:—His Honor the s..?*'" B tendent; the Kevs. ,J. C. Bagshawe II T, | Knri " Captain Wilson, Messrs. W. Williams j (In- - se ' H. E. Alport, Packer, Cordon, Davie Pavitt, Ilawkes, &c. ' UcUla m, Previous to the commencement of the u. (m ; diate business of the evening, ' ' The Venerable Chairman* announced that members of the School Committee had to be .1 ° in consequence of some informality n, the tions. uluMessrs. James Jones and Cyrus Uavi e unanimously elected, Mr. G.Gordon action , n W |f : committee ex officio o.a churchwarden. The Archdeacon congratulated 'the meetim, the financial condition of the building f mi d , f ,? n church; about 4*looo had been required of L\- i £922 had been received. lie read a list of dona' tions, which included contributions from Lord r telton and the Ven. Archdeacon Paul. '

In opening the proceeding* the Ven Mo rhairm-. observed that a meeting had b; on recently heir which allusion had been made to the object of tl present one. At that meeting he had stated' that h should be prepared to bring forward a prop, <=a! f letting a portion of the seats in St. John's ( hur h 1 " He had formerly been opposed to the adoption',; such an expedient, but he had since seen 'an J modify the views formerly held by him on ject. A large proportion of the parishioners' had expressed very decided views as to the desirabilitv of having appropriated seats; and he thought that the time was come when a fair concession i„j K i lt made to them, the more so as their views had her temperately expressed, and moreover their num bers were increasing. The plan of letting s-its ha'] long prevailed in England, and was bein" l ar »elv adopted in Australia. His objections had W-n =otn ; what removed by reflecting on the fact that after all there was really very little substantial different between obtaining a seat and doing so by means rt subscriptions. It was proposed now" that fj' Michael's and St. Luke's should remain free churches at all events until the opening of the Cathedral- and then about 1200 seats would still remain free an<] unappropriated for ever. To Jet a portion of the seats in St. John's Church would be only to make a very small concessioa to the wishes of many excellent persons; and it was proposed to do so with the-e two important safeguards against the abuses which had done so much harm in other places, viz., 1 si, that onethird of the seatsshould always befree-, and 2ndiy,that all seats unoccupied at the commencement of Divine Service should be coniidered as unappropriated. If this concession were not granted, probablv the persons he had alluded to would succeed in carrying out their views without these safe-guards, and then we should have introduced into our midst, all those evils which had occurred elsewhere. What he was anxious to guard against, was the predominance of the seat-payers over those who did not pay at the election of church officers, &c. All to have equal rights ; it was moat undesirable that the seatrenters, and not the parishioners, should have thp management of church affairs. Let us avoid, bv all means, the wretched system of giving anyone a property, as it were, in the church. Let us not fall 'into the objectionable plan of proprietary chapels. There was another point to which he was desirous of alluding to; by the new arrangements, the whole of the money raised by it would go to the general Stipend Fund ; it will not be handed over to any particular minister in each district. This could not be effected until the parish was divided. He hoped that the meeting would unanimously agree to the proposal, and that no more of the deplorable' bitterness of feeling, so evident on former occasions, would be shown on the present one.

Mr. Wynke Williams was opposed to the idea of a general stipend fund. He should object most strongly to the fund raised in any particular church being employed for the benefit of any other district

Mr. J. G Hawkes had great pleasure in moving the Ist resolution—" That it is expedient that twothirds of the sittings in St. John the Baptist's Church be let as appropriated sittings, with the reservation of one-third as free-sittings, with the understanding that all appropriated seats not occupied at the commencement of the service be open to the public." A very large number of persons—he could not say the majority of the parishioners for the result of the last meeting had proved that they were not the majority—were in favour oi having seats appropriated to them. He should not detain the meeting with any lengthened observations. He spoke as the head of a family, and he thought that every such person should have a fixed seat, where he could exercise due supervision over his children. This could only be done by families sitting together, which could not be the case under the present arrangements, lie trusted that the meeting would pass the resolution unanimously, and that on this occasion no exhibition of ill-feeling or bitterness would be exhibited. He should prefer not having a General Stipend Fund, as he thought that every district should support its own minister; this was, however, a subject for after-consideration, and could be settled at any future time.

Mr. Payitt having seconded the resolution, t Mr. Gordon said that lie must express his strong disapprobation of the proposed scheme. was i sure that it would not work well. For instance a i seat-renter might be a few minutes hue in coming . to church, and would naturally feel annoyed at finding a stranger in his place. > Mr. Davie would like to ask how the seats were E to be let, and what was to be done in case the TP '* - cations should exceed the accommodation.' t Mr. Gordon supposed that the seats could be e- . either by auction or by ballot, or by both. > Mr. Alport suggested that it was desirable tia > the proceedings should be carried on with good i ing and good temper. Quite enough of bitterns ■ had been exhibited on former occasions. Cactain Wilson had travelled over a great po - tion of the globe, and had always found tiiat ! rents existed except in Canterbury, lie looked > them as a most legitimate source of church re^" . He agreed with Mr. Hawkes that it was most u> able that families should sit together, and Ji) c ' order amongst their children. . Mr. Wynne Williams should not oppose solution, but in order to test the feelings ot t ll .'_ n ing, he should propose that instead of n |' u ;j the sittings, the whole of those in St. Jolm !> s be let. , . ,i ie . The Venerable Ciiaiuman remarked tna Bishop of the diocese objected to this / >,mr * e pursued, as it was his wish that one-third shoi - l free. f) , Mr. >Vtnnk Williams, in deference _to 1 wishes of the Hight Keverend Prelate, wou.d draw his amendment. . , • nce Mr. Ollivieu thought that Mr. Pavies e*p< of the world would have enabled him to j OIJ own questions. Of course priority of w lio would be the means of obtaining seats; c 5f could not obtain sittings at the first applicant y wait until a vacancy occurred. He str !" favour of paid sittings; the voluntary * i proved a failure. (No, no.) lie ri T t<u,L . ''' t |, e tion; it had proved a failure. Our °' e . r{r - v /) 1 t ])!ir ish. worst paid of any professional persons in t 1 /'. tit He agreed with some of the previous speakers was most desirable that there should be paw a seats, where families might unitedly worship. own case his family were frequently di>pi » u] |j over the church, and on one occasion ' 1 • n e j not find seats at all, and were Cl tL , m to return home. The voluntar {. in '"tiiere had been tried in England, l'»t or j U , people were beginning to depart froni ii- t>l) stance, the late Bishop of London had I ;ml1 ' narishat Bayswater, which was at first free, but t i h ioners had made an application that a per i< Te j seats should be let, and the experiment iw<■ l quite succcssful. The meeting must rew wo in the colonies arc in an essentuiio eiu j 0 \rposition from those at home. They had | |live ments for their churches, and could anon u ;t e them free. This is not the case here; we i. enough to do with the money collected at ever y tories, and it was our duty to raise * ~n. . J rs who means in our power to support the mi'u laboured amongst us. There should be „ tion in the seats: no brand of pauperism P phm those occupied bjr the non-payers. Ihe 1' would be to have one aisle entirely unapp and then every one would know where seat. „ Tiiftt tli'® Mr. Gordon moved as an amendment j n , meeting is of opinion that it is unadvisa g}tt ing e expedient to adopt the system of rentsi an j in the Parish of Christchurch, believing , open church bM given much satiafactio ,

. _e is much fear that the "letting of the pews will le the means of curtailing the offertories and general church contributions." Mr Bowron seconded the proposition. Mr Bektham suggested that it would be better to defer any action in the matter until the parish was Packer thought that the difficulty experienced jn obtaining seats would result in the erection of new Davie must contend that the voluntary system s i,',, f a r the more preferable one ;it had worked well England where eighty-nine new churches had been built,"and the system was making progress in had very strong feelings on the subject, ■ jas he had no wish to disturb the unanimity of die meeting, he would speak but little on it. He feared that if the seats had to be paid for, the Offertories would suffer, and we should lose exactly the persons we could least afford to lose, and who now 10 liberally contributed to the collections. He thought that the svstem of paying for seats was dangerous to the vital principles of Christianity. Mr. Oi.uvikr replied at some length to the arguments of Mr. Luck. He did not believe that the Offertories would suffer if seat-rates were adopted. He looked upon it as n privilege to contribute to them, and he knew that other persons entertained the same opinion. The Rev. J. C. Bagshawe would remind the meeting that the Ven. the Archdeacon of Middlesex had stated in a recent charge that the custom of paying for seats in churches had been in use since the fourteenth century. On a division, Mr. Gordon's amendment was lost, the numbers being—ayes, 6 ; noes, 26. The original motion was then put and carried. , Mr Beetham moved, and Mr. Gordon seconded, the following resolution " That it is undesirable to decide on the question of paid sittings in St. John's Church until the parish has been subdivided." The amendment was put and lost. The proceedings terminated with a voto of thanks to the Ven. Chairman, proposed by Sir. Blackiston and seconded by his Honor the Superintendent. The Chairman in acknowledging the compliment, thought that the meeting might fairly be congratulated on the harmony by which its proceedings had been characterized. Strong feelings had been expressed, but they had been couched in. very amicable terms. The meeting then broke up.