THE CENSUS PAPER.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLV, Issue 58, 9 March 1911, Page 8

THE CENSUS PAPER.

Xp TUB EDITOR. Sir,—A'1 paragraph appearing in The Express yesterday on the census paper contains this sentence:- 1- "The orthodox are urged to be exact, and not to use general terms such as Methodist." If this be correct, then something like 70,000 of our fellowcolonists cannot state what church they belong to. Perhaps the compilers of the census paper are unaware of the fact that there is a Church in this Dominion called the Methodist Church" of Australasia in New Zealand. At the Auckland Conference of 1896 the term Wesleyan was officially dropped. In Australia there is only the one body; here we have the Methodists and the Primitive Methodists, though before the census of 1916 comes round there is every probability of union between these two churches. So that "to be exact" members and adherents of the Methodist Church in New Zealand must sign themselves "Methodist' only, instructions on census papers notwithstanding. nm METHODIST.