WAR AND MISSIONS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 16277, 9 January 1915, Page 5

WAR AND MISSIONS

TI K EFFECT IN MELANESIA. (From Oub OWN fTonp^rovpKNT.l LONDON', November 13. As usual, the annual meeting of tho Molanesiaii Mission drew a large concourse of people to the Church House this week", and the Bishop of Rochester said the presence of so many provided ample justification for the policy of going on despite the war. War and t.hc advance of missions had always gone side by side in the modern history of England. Ihe S.i'.G. was founded during the campaigns of Marlborough; the C.M.S. during the great struggle against Napoleon. It might be hoped that what had happened in tho past might repeat itself in the present, and that side by side with the stir which the war was giving lo e;fch member of the British Empire, there would be a stir also in the direction of helping forward more earnestly than ever before the cause of Christ on the outposts of Christianity. At a committee meeting the question of taking out a policy against war risks for tho mission vessel Southern Cross had been discussed. 'T wonder," observed the Bishop, ''whether it has ever before fallen to the lot of a missionary society to discuss such a question?" Tiie Bishop would not be surprised if those German colonial possessions which lay to the north-west of tho Solomon Island-?, and which had recently been transferred to Britain would eventually bo placed under the spiritual jurisdiction of the Melanesian Mission. If that were so, it represented a call to churchmen at home to see that there was such a supply of new men and new contributions towards the mission that they would be able to advanco and take up the new sphere of work wdiich might fall within their boundaries

In tho view of the Bishop of St. Albans the war ought to be rather an incentive than otherwise to church people to go on with tho work to which tney were called. "'lt would be sheer madness if, at such a time a 6 this we word to do anything to enfeeble the Christian forces of the community." the war was one which really raised tho whoio question of Christianity, because even in intellectual circles in Germany an effort had been made to put an end t,o tho very basis on which our Christianity rested. No one could read such a book as that of Von Bernhardi without seeing that there was in it absolutely a challenge to Christianity itself.

All that had happened during the time thai Bishop Wood had been in Melanesia had only confirmed what tho history of the mission had taught before —the splendid continuance of that missionary spirit with its largeness of heart and its wisdom of action which was first given to it by Bishop Solwyn and carried on by subsequent bishops. The islands were occupied now not only by natives but by white traders and planters, who were very well disposed towards the mission. It was a friendliness which should be encouraged, for if the traders and planters eventually became the best friends of the mission it would be to their own great, spiritual gain. The bishop made an earnest appeal for men of culture and true leading to leave England and take their share in winning tho Melanesian Islands for Christianity.