HOME MISSION WORK.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20264, 25 May 1929, Page 14

HOME MISSION WORK.

SINGLE MEN PREFERRED. PRESBYTERIANS' DECISION. The Presbyterian Genera! Assembly sitting in Sydney recently decided to instruct its homo missions' committee not to receive married men into the service except in special circumstances. The Rev. D. J. Flockhart, convener of tho committee, reported that 75 ministers and missionaries were engaged in the home mission service, tho proportion of married men being disconcertingly high. When married men were employed, ho said, tremendous difficulties arose, the mobility of tho service was reduced, and the cost of removal increased. Very few, if any, of tho home mission stations woro in a position to offer a stipend of more than £4 a week. Again, tho married men expected to be transferred to places that provided manses, and few places were able to offer a dwelling. The problem was intensified when a man reached the stage at which lie was duo to bo brought to the city for further training for the ministry.

Members of the assembly strongly objected to a motion from the committee, which read:—"That tho committee bo instructed not to receive, save in exceptional cases, married men into the, service,'and that tho home missionaries be informo'd that entrance into matrimony during the homo mission course will be regarded as tho equivalent of resignation from the service."

The motion was greeted with cries of "No. no," and "It goes too far." It would be unfair, it was argued, to impose a law of celibacy upon homo missionaries.

.Eventually the offending clause in relation to home missionaries was withdrawn and the first portion of tho resolution declared carried.