THE MOTHER NATION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13826, 12 August 1908, Page 5

THE MOTHER NATION.

IMPERIAL EXPANSION. SERMON BY BISHOP NELIGAN. [from OUR OWN correspondent.] London, June 19. At the Church of St. Mary Abbot, Kensington, last Sunday morning, the preacher was the Bishop of Auckland. He referred to the Pan-Anglican Congress arid to its importance* Bishop Neligan said the Congress was an event which had in a sense been dreamed of for years, the vast idea had now been realised. Men and women from all parts of the world were assembled'in London to take part in this strange communion, this wondrous and peculiar spiritual effort. Men and women oi different colours and races, men and women who did not owe allegiance to Canterbury, but who yet claimed a right to take part in the Congressall were in London. What did it mean? What right had they to have the Congress at all? _ The Bishop answered the queries by saying that it was a congress of the whole of the Anglican community, and therefore to a certain extent it was a Congress representative of the thought of the world. 'J his Congress was the greatest event in point of discussion that Christendom had ever known or heard of. Wherever they went —whether in South Africa., Japan, China, Canada, Australia, or elsewhere, they found the lan-Anglican communion permeating the Empire. Why was that? Because the British Empire had its effect on the whole world. What did it stand for? The Bishop found the answer in the text. "The House of the Lord our God." Thev sought to do good to the States and nations with whom thev came into contact, and whether me peoples be within the sphere of the British Empire, or outside of it, the influence that now existed must not die out: and their Jimpire as a. power must cease to exist unless they had the House of the Lord their Cod supremo. The only wav by which the Empire could bo kept together was by a true bond of religion, and that was* bv standing for the Home of God. Bishop Neligan went on to speak of the necessity of training the young nations, of sympathising with them, and of helping them, and of drawing them nearer to the •Mother nation—a work which would be considerably helped by this Congress. As the mother nation the British Emoire was able to give her help. FTer motive power was for the love of the House of God, and she was able to give to every ration she touched, by her system oi organisation and adherence, the jhelp they .required, and remedv certain defects that had crept in. hen the Bishop commented at length upon the influence all those had on the national life and on Imperial expansion, touching Upon colonisation, the effects of education and materialism upon different nations instancing Spam and other countries. The Roman system of colonisation was: dealt with, how rt was killed by the iron rule of military despotism. Whew colonisation had failed it was because it had been enslaved. It was necessary that the religions ile.should be honoured above the national lite. The true national life was that life which was consecrated in God. It was only by a belief in the House of God thai this wondrous- Empire with her ' young nations could be kept together. • A park of the collection at St Mary Abbots was devoted to the Maori mission in the Auckland diocese.