THE CHURCH IN NEW ZEALAND.

Otago Witness, Issue 2978, 12 April 1911, Page 3

THE CHURCH IN NEW ZEALAND.

HOSTILITY OF SOCIALISM. CFaoM Oca Own Cobbksi'ondent.) LONDON, February 17. The conference of the missioners returned from New Zealand was of a private nature, but the official report contains some- interesting passages on the relations of the Oharch and the people in the Dominion. The .parishes,, said Canon Tupper-Carey, were wretchedly understaffed, and some of the clergy had enormous distances to travel. It was impossible under these conditions that they should at a true spiritual height, and 1 therefore he was desirous above all things rhat young English clergy should be encouraged to go end work there, if only for- a few years. A very small percentage of the boys in schools in that country were thinking of taking- Holy Orders, and ho was bound to say that he did not think the Church at present had captured the working man in that part of the world. Ik certain cases they had l bad considerable opposition from Socialists. He was quite clear that if the Church at Home would send out men to work they would come bsck infinitely stronger from the experience they had gained. PrebemViry Stuart said ho could not speak too highly of the work of the New Zealand clergy, who were shouldering a much bigger task than they could possiblj undertake. Referring to the heckling al the Queen's Statue in Wellington—which, however, only made the meetings more interesting,—he said the isolation of the clergy was a matter which struck him very painfully, and their consequent thankfulness for the mission. It seemed to have given them a new uplifting in their spiritual and the work of the lay readers, vvithou< whom half the churches in the counfvj could net be kept open, was entirely magnificent. He was so sure of the future ol the country that it was clear that great sacrifices ought to be made for it, and men induced to go out and help in the undermanned parishes. MATERIALISTIC SOCIALISM. Dr Fitzgerald said he had had most interesting interviews with Socialists, and much conrespondeiice; he thought that they were very much behindhand in that part of the world,- and told them so. He said: " Oux Socialists at Home have practically given up materialism ;■ here you are rank materialists." Socialists in New Zealand saw the pettiness of tho-Church, in that it did not trouble about the problems for which Socialists were ready to die. Commenting en what seemed to be the Active opposition of the New-- Zealand -working- man, the Bishop of Kensington said he prof-erred it to the indifference and apathy which the Church has to combat in England. Opposition, at auyrate, was life; and it was possibly true that tho reason was the same in both oases—-namely, the- smallness and pettiness of our aims in the eyes of the working classes of the country. But the missioners had brought hom-a a glorious inspiration in the fact of that real spiritual hunger which they had found. He would very much like to know what fcrm the following-up work was going to take in the various places, and what hope the New Zealand clergy had of continuing the enthusiasm. It was statedi that the lato Canon PcllocK thought the same thing could only be dona for Australia by taking a province at a time. The field was too wide.