A MISSIONARY JUBILEE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVII, Issue 11542, 29 November 1900, Page 6

A MISSIONARY JUBILEE.

A meeting was held in the Chapter House, adjoining St. Andrew's Cathedral, Sydney, on November 20, to celebrate tho 50th anniversary of the formation of the Sydney Diocesan Corresponding Committee of the Board of Anglican Missions. The committee was constituted at a meeting held in the Castlereagh-street schoolroom on November 20, 1850, under the presidency of the first Bishop of Australia (Bishop Broughton). Tho only two surviving members' of that committee are Sir Edward Knox and ex-Judge Dowling, both of whom were invited to lie present at tho meeting, but their inability to take part in publio meetings compelled them to decline the invitation. The Archbishop of Sydney, who presided, pointed out that 50 years- ago there existed a board of missions, which, howcxer, was distinct from the Board of Missions under tho General Synod, as they know it. The jubilee commemoration that night was a sort of appendix to the jubilee festival of tho Australian Board of Missions held recently. The Rev. F. B. Boyce gave some missionary reminiscences. That minor jubilee, he said, was of great interest, as the corresponding committee had been so closely associated with mission work in the dioceso. Fifty years ago Australia had a small population, and the discovery of gold had not been made. In detailing the formation of tho committee in 1850, he mentioned that among thoso who took part at the first meeting were Bishop Broughton, Bishop Nixon (Tasmania), Bishop Selwyn, Archdeacon Cowper, Sir Edward Knox, ex-Judge Dowling and Sir Charles Nicholson, now residing at Mill Hill, neai London. The great object of the committee all along had been co-opera-tion with the Board of Missions. In the interval much work had been done among the Chinese and aborigines in Australia. If the computation wfi3 anything like correct, that there were 250,000 aborigines in Australia, it showed how great and important was the work of the Board of Missions. Dr. Houison related many interesting details and circumstances concerning the progress of the committee's operations, more especially as regarded missions to the Chinese in Australia. The earliest record of any misisonary work in the colony was the starting of a mission for aboriginal children at Parramatta, in 1814. In 1819, at an examination of those children, along with the white children, the Gazette recorded that one of tho black girls secured second prize. It was at a meeting held in Sydeny, in 1858, at which Bishops Barker (Sydney), Perry and Smith (Victoria) were present that work among the Chinese in Australia was first suggested.