CHRISTIAN CONGREGATIONS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22742, 30 November 1935, Page 8

CHRISTIAN CONGREGATIONS

QUARTERLY MEETING OF COUNCIL The quarterly meeting of the Dunedin Council of Christian Congregations was held in First Church Hall on Thursday evening. It was arranged to hold the usual Christmas morning service at the Moray Place Congregational Church at 10.30 o’clock. The matter of correspondence from the League to Abolish Poverty had been dealt with and considered at length by the executive as arranged, and the executive reported to the council that, although it had every sympathy with the objects desired, it could not agree that the method proposed, a petition ■to the Crown, was the best way of attaining the objective. The executive, therefore, recommended that the council refuse its support to the proposed petition. The chairman (the Rev. W. Allen Stevely) extended a welcome to Mr H. W. Milner, the Dominion secretary of the Sudan United Mission, who was the guest of the evening, and who addressed the meeting on the needs of the Sudan in general and the work of the mission, of which he has first-hand knowledge from recent visits to the field. Mr Milner reported that the mission was inaugurated at St. Andrew’s Session Hall, Edinburgh, in 1904. The mission was interdenominational and claimed the support of all Christian people. The New Zealand Board was started as a result of the visit in 1911 of Dr Karl Kumm. Mr Milner pointed out that Sir George Symes, the present Governor of the Sudan, was very sympathetic to the work of the Christian missions and was pleased with the work accomplished by the missioners in the matter of education, medical and evangelistic work throughout the vast territory of 1,000,000 square miles. Some of the native churches had become self-supporting and now send their own evangelists,, teachers and dressers. During the speaker’s recent visit a mother had walked 12 miles with her new-born fourteenth child so that the missioners could save it, all tho others having died from want of care. This case was typical of many. The superstition of the natives was an awful thing, for the people feared to go near a woman in extremes if she could not survive by her own efforts. Six new workers were now ready to depart for the field under the control of the Sudan United Mission, and funds were nearly available also for this extra requirement. The prayerful support of the public was asked'on the third Tuesday in each month as a Dominion effort. One tribe on the Valley of the Nile was still making human sacrifices, and a worker was now proceeding to work amongst this people. Seventy per cent, of the sickness of the people was due to tropical ulcers. The speaker was accorded a warm vote of thanks for a most instructive address.