MELANESIAN MISSION

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21805, 21 May 1934, Page 12

MELANESIAN MISSION

NATIVE BROTHERHOOD A GROWING MOVEMENT CALL FOR TEACHERS [from our own correspondent] HAMILTON, Sunday Tho story of tho development of a Christian brotherhood movement which was doing much to bring the benefits of civilisation to tho more isolated villages in the islands of Melanesia, was 1 told by tho Kt. Bev. W. H. Baddeley, Bishop of Melanesia, in an address at St. Peter's Cathodral, Hamilton, this afternoon. Among those present were Bishop Cherrington and members of tho Church of England Men's Society.

Bishop Baddeley said tlie founder of the movement was a young man named lni Kopuria, the son of a heathen chief from tho island of Guadalcanal;. Seven years ago the young man, after receiving an education in tho mission school and serving for three years in tho native police, told Bishop Steward that ho wanted to give himself to God. With tho bishop's encouragement lni gathered a band of young men together and, travelling lightly, he and his companions went in groups to distant villages and introduced Christianity to thd people. The groups did not stay long in any one place, but where they felt the people wanted to know more, arrangements were made for a teacher to follow them and stay in the village. There were now 61 brothers associated with tho movement, and there was a call for 26 teachers to establish the work the brothers had started.

The bishop said that one had only to compare the villages where Christianity had been established with those where heathenism still existed to bo assured that, the work the Melanesian Mission was doing was worth while. The heathen villages were dirty, the sick were neglected and left to die. and the women were ill-treated. By their example the missionaries and the members of the brotherhood taught the natives the value of cleanliness, how to tend the sick, and they did much to improve the lot of the native women.