WOMAN IN PULPIT

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6945, 26 June 1929, Page 11

WOMAN IN PULPIT

; EVANGELIST IN SYDNEY. i . t GIFTS AS A SPEAKER. While the full admission of women to the priesthood, that is, as ‘ 1 par--5 sons” with tho prefix "Rev.,” is not 1 regarded at present as practicable, thej aTe gradually coming into their own, ■ oven in the life and government of the ; church. They are now allowed by the Lambeth Conference, as far as the Anglican Church is concerned, to do pralctieally everything that the layman can do in the service of his church. That the Methodist Church in common with other denominations ,is in lino with, the Anglicans in this direction is recalled by the forthcoming visit to Sydney of a woman Evangelist, only 23 years of age, who turned from the stage to tho pulpit, and who has come to Australia for throo years at the invitation of the Mothodist Church. Sister Ida Womb well, for that is her name, is likely to visit New Zealand before returning to England. As an Evangelist Sister Ida is said to deprecate emotionalism, and she has the reputation of preaching with calm; ness, and with appealing logic. She was not actually on the stago, but had studied for it, when her gifts as fi speaker were recognised at church functions with which she was associated, and she turned from the dramatic art to the teaching of divine lessons. She is likely to crowd the Lyceum, the “cathedral” of the Methodist Church in Sydney' and perhaps the only pu' pit in tho city which is undenominational in its big Sunday afternoon congregations.