APPEAL FOR CLERGY

Otago Witness, Issue 3510, 21 June 1921, Page 25

APPEAL FOR CLERGY

BISHOP RICHARDS AT ST. PAUL’S. CONDITIONS IN NEW ZEALAND. (From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON. April 29. A large congregation took part in the evening service at St. Paul’s Cathedral last Sunday, when Bishop Richards, of Dunedin, preached from a text taken from the 2nd Epistle to the Corinthians: “Our mouth is opened unto you, O Corinthians, our heart is enlarged.” The extension of tho early Christian Church provided a precedent for the preacher to carry the thoughts and interest of the congregation to the outlying branches of the Church to-day. “It may be well sometimes to see how the Church fares out of England,” he said, “ away in fax off dominions overseas. Let us then go back in thought first to the early part of the 19th century when the activities of the Church in Now Zealand were exercised in missionary work.”

Thus the Bishop cleared the way for the message he is primarily in this country to deliver —the need for clergy to take up work in the dominion. He traced briefly the development of the Anglican Church m Now Zealand, and explained the conditions of to-day. “ When we turn to the Church actually at work in the parishes,” he said, “we find that in all essentials things are very much the same as at Home—the same ministry, tho same worship. So that a priest on going to a parish in New Zealand would find a great deal in common with the work in which he had been already engaged. It is in the country parishes that he would experience the greatest difficulties. Some of them are 6000 square miles in area, with small settlements throughout, and it is almost impossible to do anything like regular pastoral visitations in such remote and widespread districts, and it is very difficult indeed for the Church' to adapt herself to the ever-varying conditions in the great expanses of colonial life. “ One of our greatest needs at the present time is an increase in the number of clergy—young men b' r preference, who are willing to endure hardship and adapt themselves to new and sometimes difficult conditions. We do not want party men of any particular school. We want loyal and devoted churchmen whoso hearts are filled with the love of Christ.

To those who might at any time migrate to New Zealand the Bishop had a word of advice. “I would ask you not to be disappointed if you do not find beautiful old churches almost at your very doors. On our part we will give to our own church people here a warm welcome in the new land, and on their part they will do a real service to the nation if they will remain true to their church, true to the faith in which they have been instructed, and if they will teach their children the same.”