THE COMING ANGLICAN MISSION.

Otago Witness, 1 June 1910, Page 65

THE COMING ANGLICAN MISSION.

LAYMEN'S LEAGUE PEOTEST. (From Our Own Correspondent.)

AUCKLAND, May 27,

Some strong sentiments are expressed in the annual report of the Laymen's League against the forthcoming Anglican Mission of Help. The report, which was adopted amidst applause, said, inter alia, that considerable interest had been aroused in the diocese and-elsewhere-by the publication of an extract from the English Churchman giving some details regarding the personnel of the mission, which was timed to arrive here in September next. Much indignation, couched in language partaking somewhat of the nature of that used by heated politicians when angry with each other, had been indulged in by the " forerunners " and others in denouncing the reprint referred to. " Beneath contempt," " a perfidious lie," " perfectly wicked," the statements were declared to be. Now, while opposition to the entrance of a mission to the Church in this country might prove in the result a wrong course, surely the rough analysis by a writer acquainted with his subject of the known proclivities and teachings of individual members of the mission was a legitimate and timely service rendered to the people who were to be missioned.—(Applause). It was worth noting that nobody had ventured to deny the fact that many of the coming "missioners" were ritualists of a most pronounced type. " Some of the clergy in question," continued the report, " are admittedly active members of societies of Romish character and trend. Members of the reformed Church of England may, therefore, well look askance at such missioners, and be pardoned for doubting whether the inclusion of a few genuine evangelical clergy in the mission can neutralise the harm eventuating from the advent here of other men of such a dangerous type. The charge," continued the report, " had frequently been made openly or secretly, directly or by implication, that the league was a party organisation. Those persons who branded and decried the movement as a mere exhibition of party spirit should learn, if they did not already know, or knowing, should be careful to remember, that the league was brought into existence onlj after all other efforts had failed to restrain some of the high dignitaries of the Church in the diocese from embarking upon a policy bound to wrench the hearts and consciences of many godly people, and to wreck the peace of the

Church. Protestations and pleading* public arid private, had been unheeded, deliberate resolutions of the S3'nod flouted or ignored, and a ' wearing down ' policy adopted by which it was thought that the honest conviction of many sound, loyal working churchmen could be crushed oiit. or having been once expressed would shrink into silence from a craven fear of offending those in authority, who were bent upon countenancing false teachings and exotic practices. The league had been meant to be. and was. the defender of sound Church principles in the widest sense consistent with those principles.—■ (Applause). The league remembered with thankfulness that a generation ago in the Church of this province there was room for bishops so various in thought and methods as Selwyn, Williams, Cowie, Harper, Suter, Hadfield, and for clergy differing so widely as Maunsell, Kinder, Purchas, Samuel, Williams, Govett, Fancourt, Dudley, and Bates, and they asked : Whether, in spite of boasts of catholicity and" of abhorrence of narrow party spirit, you can find anything like the same variety in unity now ?—(Apjiause). There remained but one colour in the ' Catholic ' paint-box, though there may be slight differences of shade."— (Applause).