DIAMOND JUBILEE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19452, 7 October 1926, Page 12

DIAMOND JUBILEE.

! THE PITT STREET -CHURCH.

AN INTERESTING GATHERING

OLD PEOPLE'S REMINISCENCES

MEMORY OF THE FIRST SERMON

Old people who knew Auckland in the fl-iys of its infancy assembled at a unique diamond jubilee gathering in the 1 itt Street Methodist Church yesterday afternoon. Among them were people who ai - rived from England as babies in 1340 and who attended the first service held in the church aftor it was built in 1866. Some of the' old ladies wero so aged that they were obliged to remain seated when the hymns were being sung. One of them- arrived on crutches. .But all displayed a lively interest in the proceedings, sang with true religions fervour, often without referring to the hymn book, and exchanged reminiscences of the old days with their neighbours. The meeting of friends of girlhood days was at times most affecting, for names and faces easily como to be forgotten with iht! passage of sixty years and memories' havo to be jogged laboriously. Text From the Forgotten Past. Among the. pioneers of the. church who attended tho " At Home," was Mrs. C. A. Whiting, who, as Miss Carlow, taught in tho Pitt Street Sunday School for many years. She is now 76 years of age and as active and eager as though she wero back again in her Sunday School sphere of activity. When she was fifteen she saw the foundation stone being laid, and tho following year was one of the first worshippers to enter the church at the initial service, which took tho form of a prayer meeting at six o'clock in tho morning., " I was the third to go in," said Mrs. .Whiting yesterday, " for I distinctly remember following the Rev. James Buller and the late Airs. William White. Quite a number of people attended that prayer meeting, and the three services held later in the clay were crowded. I went -&o them all," she added, with an air of pride, " and I remember that at one of them tho Rev. Warlow Davies, the Congregational minister, preached on tho text about the Israelites who went to spy out the land and brought back one bunch of grapes. I supposo the bunch of grapes appealed to my childish fancy as being something nice to eat." Tho reference is to the Book of Numbers, chapter iii, which relates how Moses sent out a party of men to spy out tho land of Canaan and how they returned with tho bunch of grapes as proof of tho land'?' productivity. An Old Sunday School Teacher. Mrs. Whiting was all smiles during •tho afternoon as she moved about the hall picking out the " girls " she had taught in the Sunday School. Not all of them could boast of the memory that she possesses. "Don't you remember?" she would nsk anxiously. " I taught you in the • Sunday School." But the middle-aged woman she was speaking to would shake her head' afut admit she," had forgotten her old teacher. Mrs. Whiting would he deeply distressed. "Oil, dear!" she would say, " and I remember you when you were such a little girl!" Another member of the congregation who was present at tho ceremony of laying the foundation stone was Mrs. M. E. Hooper, who is 89 years of age. She ' is the -daughter of the late Mr. Edward Allen, one of the first trustees. She also was present at the opening of the church"' and remembers the text from which the Rev. Mr. Buller preached at the evening service. It was the twelfth verse of the 48th Psalm: "Walk about Zion and go round about her; tell the towers thereof. Mark ye well her bulwarks, consider her palaces; that ye may tell it-.to the generation following." There were only a few buildings in Karangahape Road at that time and no big buildings in Pitt Street. Mrs. Hooper says she remembers seeing the British'troops from the Albert Park barracks buildingj Karangahape Road. What-Karangahape B.oad Was Like. Other interesting details were supplied by Mrs. E. A. Tidd, who was 16 when she attended the opening service. The Rev. James Buller, who preached tho first sermon, afterwards tied ""her marriage knot. Karangahape Road, she said, contained in those days only three shops between Pitt Street and the Ponsonby Reservoir. One of the things that stuck strangely in her memory out of a host of impressions long forgotten was the sight of the funeral corteges on the way to the Symonds Street Cemetery. 'Auckland did not possess a proper hearse in the eafly sixties and a van covered in oilcloth' served as a substitute. This fact she "remembered distinctly because she arrived with her people from Staffordshire in 1862 and the sight was a novel one. Mrs'. Tidd hys been an enrolled member of tho church since 1881. Another of. the pioneer members of the Congregation is 'Mrs. Dellow, daughter of tho late Rev. Thomas Buddie, who came out as a missionary to the Bay of Islands in 1840 and was a minister at the old High Street Methodist Church. Mrs. Dellow arrived with the family as a child and remembers the nine months' voyage from England in the 130-ton schooner Triton, She attended the old High Street Church before tho Pitt Street Church was built and was present when the foundation stone was laid. Building of tho Church,

Yesterday's "At Homo" was one of the series of functions being held in connection with tho juhileo celebrations and was presided over by the minister, the Rev. Jyeonard 15. Dalbv. On tho platform with him were tho Rev. 0. S. Cook, the Rev. J. Olphert and Mr. Georgo .Wins tone.

An informal talk by the Rev. W. S. Potter was greatly enjoyed by all present. Mr. Potter spoke of his early association with tho Primitive Methodist Church and of how, as a boy, he had watched the, mason carve the finial at the edge' of the roof of tho Pitt Street Church. ( Refreshments and ari interval for conversation brought an enjoyable gathering to a close. A fellowship meeting was held at th church last overling, when addresses wengiven by the Rev. Leonard B. Dall.»y. This evening a musical service will be held at the church. An attractive programme has been arranged.