METHODIST CENTENARY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18019, 18 February 1922, Page 8

METHODIST CENTENARY.

NEXT WEEK'S CONFERENCE.

DISTINGUISHED VISITORS.

The annual conference of the New Zealand Methodist Church, which will be opened in the Pitt Street Church, Auckland, next week, will be a gathering of unusual interest, this being the centenary conference of th e Church. Tha delegates number no fewer than 325, and in atNition many prominent Methodists from various parts of the Dominion will attend on account of the special interest attaching to the celebration of the hundredth anniversary of the arrival of the Rev, Samuel Leigh, the first Methodist missionary to labour in New Zealand.

The conference will assemble next Wednesday evening under the chairmanship of tho retiring president, the Rev. W. Grigg, of Wangaiuii. Tlio presidential address will bo delivered by the presi-dent-elect, the Rev. Principal C. H. laws. A young people's demonstration will be held on the previous evening. A thanksgiving service will bo held next Thursday evening to recognise th e many blessings on the work of the- Church in New Zealand during the past hundred years. On Friday evening a welcome will be tendered to tlio representatives from overseas. These are the Rev. Grainger Hargreaves, chairman of the Oxford Division, England, and for many years a missionary in China; Bishop Charles Edward Locke of Manila, of the Methodist Episcopal Church of the United States; and the Rev. A. McCallum, president of the general conference of Australia. Bishop Locko is expected to reach Auckland from Sydney by the Niagara on Monday. Mr. Hargreaves will arrive on Tuesday and Mr. McCallum on Wednesday. The special conference feature will include a conference tea, a festival gathering in the Town Hall on February 28, at which the Prime Minister has been asked to preside, and a public luncheon on th 0 following Jay, also at the Town Hall. Tho conference will close on March 6, and the samo evening the delegates and others will leave by the steamer Ngapuhi for Whangaroa. Tho evonts there will include a Maori welcome, the unveiling of the memorial cairn, and the laying of the foundation stono of the memorial Church at Kaco, where Mr. Leigh opened his mission in 1822. Public meetings will also probably b e held at Kaeo and Totara North.