AUSTRALIAN BISHOP

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22755, 16 December 1935, Page 12

AUSTRALIAN BISHOP

FOR LONDON PARISH “ TO BE IN CHRISTIANITY’S FRONT LINE” (From Oue Own Correspondent) SYDNEY,' December 5. The Bishop of Bathurst, New South Wales (Dr Horace Grotty), has resigned his see to accept the living of St. Pancras’s, London, at the. call of the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul’s. He recently returned to Australia from a visit to England, and will leave Sydney on January 15. “ Christianity to-day is joining issue with powerful and alien forces, magnificently organised, in a great battle for the soul of the Western world. I am going to London as the front fighting line,” said Dr Grotty, explaining his decision, in an interview. “My decision,” he added, “has been arrived at after a conference with my colleagues and ecclesiastical superiors, who all advised me that the call represents a fuller opportunity of Christian witness and service at what is the headquarters of my own church and the centre also of our British Commonwealth. The great fight to-day, could we but see it, is the fight for human faith and freedom. I believe that England is the place where that battle is actually to be fought finally, and the place, also, where, if anywhere, it is going to be won. “It must be remembered also that I was born in England and I return to what is particularly my final home, as it is the spiritual home of every Briton •in the world. In going, I shall go as an Australian, for Australia has been my actual home for nearly all my life, and it is my hope that in London and in England I shall be able to interpret Australia and her people, and will serve them there. I cannot but regard the call to an overseas churchman to work in London at the invitation of such a body as the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul’s as a more than generous gesture, not only to me, but to that church aitid country which for 29 years I have had the honour to serve.

“ I think that we are used to the idea of English churchmen coming to Australia to help us, and we have always rejoiced in their coming, which has immeasurably unlifted the life of the Australian church. I think it will also be a good thing if from time to time representative overseas churchmen are called to England to co-operate in the work of the church there.”

Dr Crotty was born at Bleasby, Nottingham, in 1880. He was educated in Melbourne, graduating from the University there, 8.A., in 1906, and M.A. in 1908." He gained the degree of doctor of divinity in 1923. His first church appointment was in Melbourne and his first rectorship at North Sydney. He served during the Great War as a chaplain with an Australian battalion. He was dean of Newcastle from 1919 to 1928, when he was appointed Bishop of Bathurst. He is a magnificent preacher, having at his command a wealth of forceful imagery. He is essentially a democrat, and in the industrial areas of Newcastle was extremely popular with the miners and the steel workers. He holds decided views on the part the church should play in social affairs. He is an ardent British patriot. An address he delivered shortly after his return from his recent tour was featured in all the Australian newspapers as one of the most lucid explanations ' of the present unsettled in world and the implications thereof.