MISSIONARY RALLY

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 522, 27 November 1928, Page 16

MISSIONARY RALLY

PRESBYTERIAN MEETING WORK AT HOME AND ABROAD “Onward and ever onward in this great work of evangelisation” was the motto given to the great missionary rally of Presbyterians last evening by the Rev. George Budd, superintendent of home missions. HHHE Town Hall was filled for the demonstration arranged to fit in with the sessions of General Assembly and the Right Rev. Professor W. Hewitson, the Moderator, presided. The addresses were broadcast by IYA. Mr. Budd said that ministers and home missionaries had nearly 190,000 people under their pastoral care. To look after each of these was no small task. The first steps to establish their Church were taken barely 90 years ago, and to-day it had 590 churches, 335 manses and hundreds of halls. Colleges, schools and social service equipment made a goodly display. It was no trifling thing that they conducted services in fully 1,400 preaching places and ministered Sunday by Sunday to an average company of nearly 90,000. The multitude who called themselves Presbyterian but remained unreached were a constant challenge to them. The drift could be stayed only as they worked together with God. Let them be bolder, more daring and more enter-r prising in responding to the urgent call for personal evangelism. PAKEHA AND MAORI “A Maori chief has recently said, ‘We never get to know your best people,’ That is an impeachment of our best people and of our Christianity,” said the Rev. J. G. Laughton, of Taupo, who spoke of the work among the native race. There was but one arfswer to the impeachment of the pakeha by thus race and that was the love of God manifestly set forth by men and women in the midst of this people. The Maori had been driven back not only numerically but geographically into the byways of the country, he said. The white man with his guns and powder and shot and with the fever and sickness that he brought sadly reduced their numbers. Then there was the rum traffic that had sent so many a noble Maori down to the ruin of the grave. If they were to-day a sparse people the blood of the tribes now forgotten lay at ’our door. WORK IN CHINA The missionary work in China, the New Hebrides and India was spoken of by the Rev. J. M. McKenzie, of Canton. To-day the Church in China was no longer an off-shoot of the mission, he said. The mission was an auxiliary of the Chinese Church. As they now passed from the paternal attitude toward the young Chinese "Church to a relationship of partnership they must realise that it must be an active working partnership. He pleaded with them to have deep faith in the Church in China. The need of more workers and of more prayer was urgent. The missionaries in China to-day lived in an atmosphere of hope, for the nation was rebuilding its life from the very foundation. Taking a parable from last night’s wool sale, Mr. McKenzie said: “Are we ready to forget ourselves like the woolbuyers and with equal loyalty to our Master endeavour to secure for Him that matchless raw material —I use the term with no derogation—that in the looms of God it might be made over into the fine garments of Christian life and character?” A Scripture lesson was read and prayer was offered by the Rev. W. V. Milne, of the New Hebrides. A choir under the leadership of Mr. C. D. Barker sang the anthem, “Send Out Thy Light,” Mr. E. A. Craston presiding at the organ.