ALBERTLAND MEMORIES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19959, 30 May 1928, Page 10

ALBERTLAND MEMORIES.

It has been perfectly appropriate, considering the circumstances, for the Methodist Church jubilee celebration at Paparoa to revive memories of the pioneer days of all Albertland. The special settlement of which Paparoa remains as one centre was essentially a religious venture. There was something of a "Pilgrim Fathers" air about the colonising scheme. Its selection of colonists, its prospectus, its manner of setting out, all were arranged about the pivotal idea of freedom to worship according to the dictates of a "nonconformist conscience." New England bade fair to repeat itself in New Zealand. It did, in some respects; and not least in the hardships that the pioneers were called to face. Realising that they were not going to the promised land, flowing with milk and honey, the less courageous got no further than Auckland; and the stouter-hearted, determined to see the thing through, often had their mettle sorely tested. But it stands to the eternal credit of those pluckier pioneers that they did not quail, and they won some material reward beside the honour with which their daring is recalled to-day. It must be a source of deep gratification to the dwindling few who have recollections of the earliest days that the ideals embodied in the intrepid adventure have been to some extent realised : and, although Albertland's story is not comparable in its record of material progress with that of many another pioneer settlement in New Zealand, in this aspect it has undoubted honour. Among the memorable results of the enterprise is the contribution made to the life of this provincial district by some of the early Albertland families, and remembrance of this serves to make any celebration of the pioneer exploits of very wide interest.