CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIII, Issue 286, 31 October 1933, Page 8

CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH.

WORK AMONG THE BLIND. A good number assembled last night at the Emmanuel Congregational Church, Broadway, to.hear Mr Andrew Johnston, the blind soldier, give his secture on “Work among the blind/’ Rev. C. G. Hedley Bycroft, minister of the Church; presided, and in introducing the speaker, stated that Mr Johnston was the travelling evangelist of the New Zealand Bible Training Institute, Auckland. He was on the extension department and his work together with his wife’s was to travel the Dominion holding evangelistic missions, and this was his third visit to Emmanuel Church. They had always received blessing from Mr Johnston’s ministry and were looking forward to much blessing this time. Mr Johnston said it was a pleasure to be in the work at Palmerston North once again, and his object in delivering the lecture was to bring before the people the work that was going on among the blind. He said that many people had the idea, that blind people were hindered for life, and could do nothing but sit down, but that was not true. He wanted to show how the blind were being trained and enabled to take their own place in the world. Mr Johnston then showed from his own personal experience how this could be clone ; he told how he had been blinded in the late war, losing both his eyes, and how, after being in hospital for many months, lie went to St. Dunstan’s School for the Blind in London. After giving the history of that wonderful institution, which wa.s founded by tlie ia.te Sir Arthur Pearson, the speaker told of some very interesting and amusing experiences while there; how he learned poultry farming; the Braille and type writing, besides the making of mats and various other things. After his course in St. Dunstein’s ho came back to New Zealand and secured a position with a commercial firm at Gore as a stenographer, which position he kept for three years. The next few years following this he devoted to poultry-farming; then he received a call to beoome the evangelist of the Bible Training Institute. Mr Johnston spoke of the fine work being clone by the Jubilee Institute for the Blind in Auckland, which is under the directorship of Mr Clutha Mackenzie, who had a great insight into the work at St. Dunstan’s. being the first New Zealand soldier to be blinded in the War. The speaker appealed to the people to place more confidence in the blind as this was one of the great obstacles they had to overcome. In conclusion, Mr Johnston related how through all the fifteen years of his blindness he had proved and tested the Friend that sticketli closer than a brother, and He had never failed him. On the motion of Mr Browning a hearty vote of thanks was accorded the 'speaker. At the close or the meeting Mr •Johnston gave a demonstration of •Braille and type writing.