DISTINGUISHED VISITOR

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22904, 11 June 1936, Page 7

DISTINGUISHED VISITOR

THE REV. C. F, ANDREWS

MISSION IN UNIVERSITIES For the purpose of conducting a university mission in New Zealand, the Rev. 0. F. Andrews arrived in Dunedin yesterday. Mr Andrews, who was welcomed at a meeting in Allen Hall last night, is making his tour of the Dominion under the auspices of the Student Christian Movement and the World Student Christian Federation. He is vice-president in Rabindranath Tagore’s Institution at Santiniketan, Bengal, India, and has taken a promient part in improving the conditions under which Indians live in various parts of the world. He is a fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge University, and was for some years vice-principal of Wcstcott House, Cambridge. He is the author of a number of publications on Indian problems and religious subjects. Mr Andrews arrived in Dunedin direct from Fiji, which he visited at the invitation of the Indian Association to assist it in meeting land tenure and legislative problems. He will leave on Monday morning to continue his mission in the other New Zealand university colleges and will visit Australia and India before returning to Great Britain to attend the conference of the World Student Christian Federation in Birmingham in January and to take theological lectures at Cambridge University. The president of the Otago University branch of the Student Christian Movement (Mr G. H. Boyos) presided at the meeting at which the visitor was welcomed last night and, in welcoming Mr Andrews, said that his visit to tins part of the world had been made partly at the desire of the Indians in Fiji, which he visited in 1917, performing a great work in freeing the Indians from the slavery of indentured labour. The Indians had wanted him to visit them again to see the difference which he had made. The chancellor of the University (Mr W. J'- Morrell) also welcomed Mr Andrews, making reference to his. distinguished career at Cambridge University. Mr Andrews, he said, had seen a vision that had called on him to go in the service of Iris Master, and he had then gone to India. His experience had given him great familiarity with students in the East and in the West, and that experience bad been revivified by the thoughts of people in many lands. Bishon Fitchott welcomed Mr Andrews on behalf of the Church at large, and good wishes for the success of the mission were also extended by the president of the Otago University Students’ Association (Mr F. Green). ~ , Mr Andrews, in reply, said that coming to Dunedin and getting into the atmosphere of a university college was a reminder to him of tlie long years lie had spent at Cambridge University. There, in 1928, 10 years after the conclusion ot the war, he had been asked to preach the Armistice Day sermon. The text suggested to him had been from Revelation: “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth.” He had immediately seen the import of the text, thinking of the ten ible divisions between people that had been the cause of the war and envisaging a change in the future. But those divisions had not been eliminated. Lace pride was the greatest evil in the world to-day, and colour prejudice bad got right into the heart of the Church. The divisions in the Church and the old earth, with, its empire grabbing and with its millionaiies on the one side and poverty on the other, must be done away with. Nearly another 10 years after ho had drawn attention to these matters in his sermon at Cambridge the divisions in the Church bad not been reduced. "Race and colour prejudice, glume, unemployment, and greed remained. He thought that people were not quite so bad ns they had been, but the world nevertheless was in a mess to-day. Here in this part of the world you cannot imagine what it is to live cm your nerves all the time.” he added, referring to conditions in Europe The world's great men were doing acts of indescribable folly and somehow making things worse, and the evil seemed fo be going deeper and deeper. “Literally we are in despair in Europe, he said. “Literally we arc down on our knees. The best men in England don t know from one day to another what is going to happen next. People must get away from man and turn to God, he continued. He did not want to be sensational, but he only wanted to bring his audience down to realities. He wanted everyone to face the facts and in that way, he trusted, they would come back to God. Only through Him could they find the way out of their difhculties. “We of the older generation have failed,” he concluded. “on of the younger generation have got to succeed,”