SUNDAY SCHOOLS' UNION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18234, 30 October 1922, Page 9

SUNDAY SCHOOLS' UNION.

THE ANNUAL GATHERING.

UNITY AND THE CHUECHES. Young faces filled the Town Hall in every part on Saturday evening, when J the annual rally of the Auckland Sunday j Schools' Union was held. The Mayor, . Mr. J. H. Gunson, presided, and most of the 400 Sunday schools in Auckland affiliated to the union were represented by contingents of teachers and boys and girls. During the evening the Mayoress presented the prizes won in the union's j annual examination, and the president, I Mr. J. W. Court, made an announcement with regard to the winners of cer-t tificates. A feature of the gathering was! the bright singing by the children and ; the special items contributed by the, children of the Manurewa Home and the boys of St. Stephen's Maori College. | In his opening address, the Mayor said . it was a wonderful thing which the | union had accomplished, co-operation and j mutual help between 400 Sunday schools I representative of almost every religious j denomination. It showed that the j divisions and differences among the i Churches did not. exist for the young i and, if the children grew up in that j tolerant spirit of which that gathering was an example, the ideal of Church unity would be brought closer. He j hoped that among the coming generation j the divisions of sect and creed would be j nt least less serious than those which divided the Christian Church to-day. An augury of closer relations , between all denominations was to be found in the r.?cent formation of the Council of Christian Congregations. In conclusion, the Mayor referred to the value of Sunday school work in building character, anil paid a tribute to the 'work of the union's secretary, the Rev. B. Busfield, whose organisation had been responsible for raising the union to its present proportions.