Anglican Synod.

Opunake Times, Volume V, Issue 220, 13 October 1896, Page 2

Anglican Synod.

The annual session of the Wellington Diocesan Synod opened at Wellington on Wednesday, there being a large number of clergy present, also lay representatives from every parish and parochial district of the disocese. Only formal business was transacted in the afternoon, and in the evening Bishop Wallis welcomed the large attendance and delivered an address. Referring to the work of raising a cathedral for the city, he said promises of £4167 had been received, of which £2700 was already paid into the bank. He declared they needed a cathedral for the city, and he saw no hope of reaching the large mass of our fellow-citizens until we have a large church absolutely free and open to all, into which a man may enter whether he be poor or rich, Christian or Agnostic, and listen to the Word of God without asking his neighbors’ leave or paying the price of a pitting. He urged that prompt and vigorous effort be made to place the erection of the cathedral beyond doubt. As to the Bible in schools, if they desired, as he did, to maintain the present, free, compulsory and undenominational character of our primary schools, he saw no course open but for the introduction of the Irish text-book, which, though not an ideal book, had been adopted by the Anglican General Synod. There was, he said, no better proof of the necessity of religious teaching in our large towns than the Bill introduced by the Government for the suppression of juvenile depravity with its drastic provisions for punishment. Meanwhile their duty was, first, to urge upon the members of the Legislature the objects they have at heart; secondly, to use the utmost opportunities accorded of teaching the children of our State schools before or after school hours, not only by clergymen, but by laymen, and, best of all, by women working on a definite plan under a clergyman’s superintendence ; thirdly, to increase the efficiency of Sunday schools, and it was of the highest importance that the clergymen should spend a few minutes at least in school. In these schools great system was required, and regular classes were held on week days for teachers, so that the lessons might be properly prepared. In conclusion on this subject, he said, “ Our church has, rightly or wrongly, got the credit for indifference to secular instruction. Because it is secular I think we have been tempted to separate ourselves from it as from an unclean thing, and so won the reproach of being bad citizens. A policy of abstertion may be dignified, but is rarely effective. In this case I believe it has been distinctly mischievous.”