WESLEYAN MAORI MISSIONS

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXI, Issue 4304, 13 March 1901, Page 3

WESLEYAN MAORI MISSIONS

A CHARGE OF INDIFFERENCE. The question of the appointment ol the Rev D. Weathered as assistant to the Rev AVilliam Gitto.s of the Maori .Mission, Auckland, led to seme pretty free expressions of opinion among -he members at tho AA’cslevan Conference yesterday. The appointment of Air AA’eathoroll was made a conditional one, depending on a sum of £2OO per annum being raised for his support- Auckland district guaranteed £IOO, and looked to Wellington and the SoutJi Island to guarantee the balance. Neither the AA 7 cllington nor South Island districts showed a li;’ anxiety, however, to move in the matter, and the conference, as a body, showed an inclination to sit on tho fence for a while to sae what would turn up. Air Gittos, the aged Alaori missionar3 r , was unclisguisedb' disap-

pointed at the turn of events. He appeared, though he did not say so, to think that the second hundred ought to have been guaranteed by the conference at onen if it really sympathised with

the work. For the first time in ten .years a suitable man had volunteered for service among the Maoris. Tho opportunity’ offered consequently was a most exceptional one. That the conference would seize upon it and act at once was only a natural presumption in the opinion of Maori .sympathisers.

Air Thomas Allen’s motion that Air AA’eatherell’s offer to enter (lie Alaori Mission be accepted van a danger of being shelved. Air John C. Allen (Upper Thames) spoke with emphasis on the desirability of the conference deciding that Air Weathcrell should' go at once on to the Al aori Mission field. The President .sought to impress the conference that no discourtesy was intended to Air Gittos when it asked that before tho appointment could bo made the guarantee should be complete. Tho President regarded it as a matter of business evident!:’.

Mr Ready condemned ' the lethargy the conference as a body showed towards tho Air. on mission. Its heart was not evidently’ wholly’ in .sympathy with that work. Actions spoke lender than words, and an inclination towards materialism was being shown in dealing with this appointment. Tiie Rov J. J. L ewis said there was no ground for charging tho conference with indifference to the Alaori Mission.

Ultimately, an amendment, moved by the Rev Samuel Griffith (Upper Thames) to the effect that the conference, having heard that the £2OO for the additional missionary’ to the Maoris was guaranteed, recommended that Air Weatherell be appointed this year to the work, was adopted, with a few dissentient voices.