NEW ZEALAND CLERGYMEN

Northern Advocate, 29 October 1932, Page 14

NEW ZEALAND CLERGYMEN

FULLY WORKED,

“The New Zealand clergyman is fully worked, and that is what ho would wish,’’ said the Rev. Canon Percival James, of 'Wellington, when preaching the Synod sermon in Christchurch Cathedral on .Sunday (report's the “Christchurch Times”). “But many arc overworked. Nervous breakdown is not infrequent amongst the clergy of this province. At least the parish priest might be saved from constant worry about parish finances. It is our theory —but not always our practice —that the whole responsibility of financial provision should be borne by the laity.” The reluctance of the best young men to offer themselves as candidates for the ministry had been deplored for years past, said the preacher. What was the explanation? The man worth having was seldom deterred by the prospect of a bare subsistence and an inadequate pension. “The beat young man, however,” said Canon James, “frequently turns away with something like disgust from a calling in which, he must, for ever fill the petty and vexatious parts of professional beggar, money collector, ticket seller, purveyor of popular amusements, and finally sink into an amiable busybody, a. parish hack who does everything by turns and nothing well.”