LONDON SUNDAY SCHOOL UNION.

Otago Witness, Issue 3005, 18 October 1911, Page 4

LONDON SUNDAY SCHOOL UNION.

VISIT OF MR NEWTON JONES.

A welcome was accorded by representatives of ihe various branches to Mr Newton Jones, the deputation from the London Sunday School Union, in the Trinity Methodist School Room, Moray place, on Saturday evening. Mr Jones, who is accompanied by his eon (Mr S. Victor Jones) _ in the capacity of musical director, is touring Australia and New Zealand in the interests of the London Sunday School Union. He arrived in the course of the morning from Christchurch, where he had accomplished work of the most gratifying description, and will be engaged in Dunedin during the next fortnight. The speakers included Messrs Peter Barr (representing the World Wide Sunday School Conference in New Zealand), T. W. White (representing the Congregational Churches), C. Fleming M'DonaJd (president of the Church of Christ), W. H. Johnstone (representing the Methodist Churches), J. Kinnear (Presbyterian), D. Wright (City Mission), and the Rev. J. M'Lure Uffen (Leith Street Congregational), who was acquainted with Mr Jones in the Old Country. Mr E. Rosevear, president of the Sunday School Umiom occupied the chair. Mr Jones thanked the .speakers for their welcome, and said he brought them the hearty greetings of the Conterbury Sunday School Union. He had completed 24 years of service in this kind of work throughout the British Isles, and could claim to be as much in touch with Sunday schools and young life as almost anybody. He had left 3,000,000 scholars and 300,000 Sunday school teachers behind him, and they all sent greetings by him to their fellows in the colonies, and wish them God-speed. After it was decided that he should come to the Dominion, he corresponded with 120 churches where he had held missions and campaigns, and received 112 answers, each assuring him of belief in tlje work. His hearers, then, would understand the power ho • felt behind him and the confidence he had in the present undertaking. The greatest asset that the Church or the nation possessed was* the child, and it behoved all who were in the Church to rally their best forces in order to centre it upon the religious eduoation of the young life. His mission was threefold, first evangelical, second: educational, and third extension work on behalf of the Sunday School union. Ho had no sympathy with missions of mere excitement, and would be no party to anything of that kind; but they had an evangel to make known, and, wisely handled, it would win by the very message it had to give, a message of love that could captivate the young heart