CHURCH AFFAIRS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3808, 8 March 1927, Page 48

CHURCH AFFAIRS.

THE MISSIONARY SPIRIT. ADDRESS BY BISHOP OF LONDON. WELLINGTON, February 28. There was an audience of well over 2000 people at the Town Hall to-night to hear the Bishop of London, the Right Rev. A. F. Winnignton Ingram, speak mainly on immigration and Church affairs. He dwelt upon the part the Church had taken and should take, in migration, which was part of the missionary work any church should do unless it was a dying church. Bishop Ingram said he brought a message from the Mother Country to a vigorous young country, and had he known that the Duke and Duchess of York would have been in New Zealand he would probably not have come here, for there could not have been better ambassadors than the Duke and the Duchess. The Bishop -aid he loved New Zealand and loved to think that it was one of the most English places in the world. There were so many ties which bound them together, ties which would ’never allow them to be separated again. It had been said that Great Britain was a decaying

nation, but in the war the visibility of her manhood was proved. Who kept the workers paradise safe? The British Navy, it was the Bank of England, the old lady of Ihreadneedle street, who stabilised our trade and commerce after the war. Never had Great Britain stood higher in the esteem of the world than now. In .America he had addressed many large meetings in New York, Washington, and other places. “I told them a few home truths in America,” said Dr Ingram, amidst laughter. “Did they resent it? Not a' bit. It was news to some of them. Do they respect Great Britain? Never did she stand on so high a pedestal of honour in America as she does to-day.— (Applause.) But we paid our debt and said nothing about it.” Dr Ingram said he brought a message from the Old Church. He was going to speak of the Church. He claimed to have as great a right as any to bring a message from the Church, for he was the hundred-and-eighth Bishop of London in direct succession of those who had lived in the same place, Fulham Palace, for 13C0 years. Did they forget New Zealand when this country was born? Who came to their rescue from a religious point cf view? What about Samuel Marsden, Bishop Selwyn, and Bishop Abraham, who was Bishop of Wellington before many of them were born ? It was the Old Mother Church which came over and gave them grants. The Old Church which had lasted 1300 years was still living and holding and sending out its ministers. He had lived in London 42 years, and had never known the Church «o full of missiionary spirit as it was to-day. When a missionary call was made in London, Westminster Abbey, St. Paul’s, and a hall as large as the Wellington Town. Hall were crammed out the same evening. The Church that was not a missionary church was a dying church. He might be asked, “Why are you not a dissenter? Why are you not a Roman Catholic?” He . was not a dissenter because be did not dissent. He did not dissent from church prayers said in Latin and English for more than 1000 years, from church creed, or from church sacrament, because our Lord laid them down Himself. Why was he not a Roman Catholic? Because he was an English Catholic, and he looked back with awe and-reverence on the great heritage which had come to them. With regard to the revision of the Book of Common Prayer, the Bishop said that the new Prayer Book was to be only permissive, and made no difference whatever in the balance of doctrines in the Church °f England. No one need use it who did ’•ofc want to. . Dr Ingram also pointed out that in America it had been used for 130 years, and no one ever dreamt that it was subversive the Reformation. In tho opinion of 34 bishops out of 36 in England, th? new version would he well adapted to bring peace to the Church at Home, and would enrich the worship of tho Church of England.