THE MISSIONARY TASK.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19699, 27 July 1927, Page 14

THE MISSIONARY TASK.

WORK AT HOME AND ABROAD.

PRESBYTERIAN ACTIVITIES.

A COMPREHENSIVE REVIEW. A review of all the mission enterprises of the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand was given at a conference in St. Andrew's Church yesterday afternoon. There was a large attendance, over which the Rev. G. H. McNeur, of Canton, Moderator of the Church, presided, and at the close he described it as one of the finest conferences held during the tour of the Dominion. A policy of constant attention to the staff and a guaranteed minimum stipend was outlined by the Rev. G. Budd, superintendent of home' missions. It was not a satisfactory state of affairs that in spite, of constant appeals the Home Mission Committee was not yet able to give its home missionaries an allowance of £l3 a year for each child. The committee aimed to help the missionaries by circulating books, through correspondence courses, and summer schools. Tho field had been tested out for the employment of women, and lie was satisfied there was great scope for them, especially in reaching the children of the backblocks. In the Auckland district they had some 25 men at various stages of training for the ministry, and in Wellington there were a dozen. Mrs. J. Robb, Dominion president of tho Presbyterian Women's Missionary Union, said the union had 6800 members in 314 branches, and last year had raised £9751 for mission funds. Future of the Maoris. f A appeal for the Maori people was made by Sister Jessie, who said we were imposing upon a child race a civilisation hundreds of years old, and expecting them to accept it immediately. What was to be the future of the Maori people ? She believed it 'must be assimilation in the white race. The Government, through tho Education Department and the Health Department, was doing much to develop the Maoris physically and intellectually, but it was left to the Church to develop them spiritually. They were a spiritual race, and responded quickly to a spiritual message.

The mission had 37 workers in 13 stations, and they had the prospect of a new Turahina School for girls, costing £14,000. Of the 37 workers 32 were women, and she did not think the' balance was quite right. Three speakers who dealt with the three foreign missions of the Church were preceded by the Rev. H. H. Barton, foreign mission secretary, who described the means taken to keep the Church informed of .its activities in other lands.

The work of the Church in the New Hebrides Islands was reported on by the Rev. J. D. McKenzie, who recently paid an extended visit to that field. He counted it an honour and a privilege to see what the missionaries were doing there, and to be associated with them. The work in the New Hebrides was their nearest foreign mission, and their earliest mission, having been begun in 1868. It was also their smallest mission, and the very weakness of the people made its appeal to them. The people of those islands Would perish if it were not for the Christian Gospel. Recruits Urgently Needed. Mr. McKenzie gave a vivid account of the evangelistic, educational and medical work being carried on by the missionaries of the Church. Recruits were urgently needed to take up the burden soon to be laid down by veterans who had done great service. The nature of the work of the Church in the Punjab, India, was explained by the Rev. J. L. Gray. The field contained three-quarters of a million people spread among 3500 villages. In addition to the evangelistic work, and so closely associated with it that they could not be separated, were the educational work of the Kharar Boys' High School, and the medical work at the Jagadhri Hospital. The aim of the mission was to build up a self-supporting Indian Church. There were some 200,000 outcasts within their mission district, and large numbers of them were seeking for Christian instruction. Several increases in the staff were urgently necessary. > That every Christian must be a "real live missionary" was the principle laid down by the Rev. A. L. Miller, who Jias rocentlv returned on furlough from Canton. The Christian Church of China was established ten years ago, largely by representatives of foreign countries. For a time the Chinese Christians had been strongly inclined to leave all the responsibility with the missionaries, but since the upheaval of 1925 they had got their shoulders under the burden, and much of the work had been going on without the missionaries at all. The Chinese Government had issued new regulations requiring nil private .schools to register and use the Government curriculum, and that there must be no teaching of religion within school hours. It was perfectly right and just that they should register, but thev hesitated to carry on schools in which they could not teach the Gospel. Whether the schools had to stop or not the real work of the missionary would remain.