NEW ZEALAND PRAISED.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19658, 9 June 1927, Page 12

NEW ZEALAND PRAISED.

BISHOP INGRAM'S TRIBUTE. "SET IN THE: SILVER SEA." SUNSHINE AND THE TROUT. PROGRESS MADE BY CHURCH. A warm tribute to New Zealand arid its inhabitants is paid by the Bishop of London, Dr. Winnington-Ingrarn, in an article that he wrote for the Times shortly after his visit to the Dominion early in the present year. " 'You will love New Zealand when you get there,' so §very one said, and so we did," writes Dr. Ingram. " Whether it is the brilliant sunshine, or the hospitality of the people, or the sporting character of the rainbow trout that most impresses the visitor depends a little bit on the character and tastes of the visitor himself, but so far as I wan concerned all of them appealed to me. "When I heard that the Duke and Duchess of York were going to visit New Zealand at the same time, I nearly cut out New Zealand for fear of being de trop; but I am very glad I did not, as the hearts of New Zealanders were big enough for everybody from the Old Country, and the immense meetings which I addressed at Wellington, Auckland and "Christchurch—Dunedin had, alas! to be left out for lack of time—could not have been increased even if the good New Zealanders had not been giving an enthusiastic welcome to their .Royal guests at the same time. I was able at Christchurcb ~to join in the welcome to the Duke at Christ's College, the best-known public school in New Zealand, where I had preached earlier in the morning. He was able to secure an extra week for the boys, and I a humble half-holiday, as befitted our relative positions; but the boys did not do badly that morning." Christianity and Churches. The bishop proceeds: "What is the Christian Church doing and what are the prospects of the immigrant? If you read a book like Old Zealand, by Mailing, who himself married a Maori wife and lived among them, and realise that a little more than a hundred years ago the whole island was inhabited by fierce maneating cannibals, it is perfectly astounding what the Christian Church has done. " One takes off one's hat to men like Samuel Marsden and Bishop Selwyn and the early Methodist missionaries, who in a hundred years have turned these wild tribes into the most law-abiding, happy, though not too energetic, people, who give the tourist a hearty welcome wherever ho goes. They are all Christians now of one denomination or another, although some have temporarily followed some wild prophet, who has, however, rather lost his prestige. "The early colonists, of course, naturally brought their Christian religion with them; Dunedin, as is well known, was chiefly peopled by Scotch Presbyterians, and Christchurcb was at first a definitely Church of England settlement; but naturally, as time has gone on, all sorts of people have settled in both, and it was a most eloquent Labour M.P., a Baptist minister Mayor, who insisted on giving me a civic welcome in Christchurch at 12, on the very day when he was going to welcome the Duke of York at 5." World's Finest Trout Fishing. Of trout fishing on the Tongariro River the bishop says: "Itis no doubt the finest in the world. 1 have caught many salmon in Scotland, but they do not as a rule leap five times 3ft. into the air, as a 91bw rainbow trout did, and if a mere bishop could get. seven, weighing 401b., in 24 hours, what could not a clever fayman do ?" Dr. Ingram concludes: —And so farewell, New Zealand, set in the silver sea as fairly as the Mother Country on the other side of the world. Macaulay pictured a New Zealander seated on a fragment of London Bridgo sketching the ruins of St- Paul's. I believe that a truer picture will be a proud mother, stronger than ever, pointing across the seas to a beloved daughter nation, growing in influence and power more like her every year."