PORT CHALMERS METHODISTS

Otago Witness, Issue 3972, 29 April 1930, Page 65

PORT CHALMERS METHODISTS

THE NEW CHURCH. Speaking at the laying of the foundation stone of the new Methodist Church at Port Chalmers on Saturday, the Rev. A. C. Lawny (senior Methodist minister in active work in New Zealand) stated that the Rev. James Watkin and the Rev. S. Ironside were'the first Christian missionaries of any church in ~the South Island, Mr Watkin commencing his mission in June, 1840, at Waikouaiti, and Mr Ironside at Cloudy Bay in Cook Strait in December. Mr Watkin had a huge parish from Lyttelton in the north to Bluff and Stewart Island in the south. On land he walked. On the sea he travelled by whaleboat. Three times he endeavoured to land on Ruapuke Island, but each time the seas were too rough. However, he captured Ruapuke for his Lord jn a different way. Though his body could not land, “ his soul vent marching on ” through the ministry of the Rev. Mr Wohlers. In 1830 he had written a very moving pamphlet, “ Pity Poor Fiji.” This had reached Germany, and had fallen into the hands of Mr Wohlers and had prompted him to offer for mission work in the Pacific. In the very year that Mr Watkin was transferred from Waikouaiti, Mr J. F. H. Wohlers commenced his work on Ruapuke, where he toiled with rare devotion for 40 years. In 1822 the Rev. Walter Lawry, grandfather of the speaker, had founded, in Tonga, the first Methodist mission in the South Seas. Twelve years later the Rev. James Watkin was a missionary in the same group, and 50 years later still his son was Mr A. C. Lawry’s tutor in mental | and moral science and principal of Three Kings Theological College, Auckland. From the South Seas the Rev. James Watkin came by way of Sydney in me of Mr John Jones’s ships, the Regia, to Waikouaiti. In that year Auckland was founded, and that was the time when the missionaries Ironside, Buttle, and Aldred tramped from Kawhia through Waikato to Taranaki. Securing from the Waikato chiefs the liberation of many enslaved Taranaki Maoris (many years later Rev. J. Aldred ministered to the Europeans in Port Chalmers and Dunedin). “ Welcome to Purgatory. Brother Creed.” was Mr Watkin’s significant greeting to his successor in 1844. In that year the Otakou Natives sold the Otakou district, a vast area, for lid per acre, and of the Native chiefs who signed the agreement all but two had been baptised into the Wesleyan Church. The Rev. Charles Creed welcomed the Presbyterian pioneers who arrived in the John Wycliffe and Philip Laing, preaching to them from the text “ Strive to enter in at the strait gate.” Congratulating the Rev. T. A. Pybus and his congregation upon the wonderful success which was crowning their undertaking, Mr Lawry replied to the gibe of Professor Joad that nobody gives money for building chapels because nobody goes to chapel now. On the contrary, the Wesleyans in Great Britain had spent £3,489,000 in the past seven years in erecting churches and mission halls,. £41,500 per month. These new erections were > filled, or at the least were attended by t excellent congregations. American Metho- ‘ dists were erecting new churches to the number of 15 per week, year after year, with annual increases of membership of J more than 175,000. Exhorting the Port Chalmers Methodists to be workers and not drones in the hive, Mr Lawry recalled the humorous home-thrust .of a » famous preacher, who read Job i, 14: i “ The oxen were plowing and the asses “ feeding beside them,” and. turning to the ‘congregation, asked, “Which are you?”