THE WAIKATO ARCHIDICIONAL CONFERENCE AND THE ATHANASIAN CREED.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVI, Issue 9323, 28 March 1889, Page 3

THE WAIKATO ARCHIDICIONAL CONFERENCE AND THE ATHANASIAN CREED.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir,—The writer of an article in your issue of Saturday last has been, to use his own expression, ''at it again" in regard to the doings of the Waikato Archidiaconal Conference. As he i 3 evidently misinformed as to what took place re "The Athanasian Creed" last September, I must, in justice to the Conference, ask permission to put him right. The only motion formally proposed (and I was the proposer) was the following, which was eventually carried, though not without a division : " that inasmuch as the use of the Athanasian Creed in the public services of the church appears to continue to be a stum-bling-block to some devout persons, it is desirable _ that endeavours should still be made to find relief for such without impairing the emphatic nature of the testimony of this creed to cardinal truths of the Gospel now not less than ever needed to be kept before men." Surely this was a modest motion. It certainly was intended and thought so to be by the mover. In proposing it, he pointed out that relief could, of course only be obtained by action of the highest authority in tie Church of England, but that the way to move that authority was for the members of the church to try to come to some agreement; firstly, in the council of the parish, then in that of the archdeaconry or rural-deanery, then in that of the diocese, then in that of the ecclesiastical province, until, finally, the matter be carried to the Synod and Convocation of the Mother Church. The mover felt quite unable to suggest what the means of reliei should be. He suggested no new departure. He contented himself with bringing before the Conference the various proposals which had been made in the convocations of Canterbury and York, by leading Bishops and other learned clergy. When there is an opportunity of discussing the question in the Diocesan Synod, the action of those who have already voted in the Conference will bo more fully and more widely understood.—l am, &c., W. N. de L. Willis. St. Andrew's, Cambridge, March 25, 1889. P.S.—I am to blame, perhaps, for nob having before placed the resolution before your readers. But it is only now that I realise that it did not appear in your Hamilton correspondent's report. Ib was fully quoted in the local papers and the Church Gazette. Several notices appeared in your columns, all dwellling on a matter of no real momentnamely, an informal show of hands (taken without motion to ascertain which of the several proposals made in Convocation in England the various members inclined to prefer), and the only motion proposed and carried seemed to drop out of sight. Had I written at the time, as your correspondent seemed to desire, the latest error at least might have been avoided.