SERIOUS POSITION.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume III, Issue 872, 25 November 1916, Page 10

SERIOUS POSITION.

- - ■■ m ' ■■ ■ PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH. MINISTERS AND HOME MISSIONERS. The serious position of the Presbyterian Church in the matter of obtaining fully trained and highly-educated ruin- j isters aud suitable homo missioners j 'came before the General Assembly, says the "Post." The Rev. Dr. Gibb urged the Assembly nor to be blind to the postion any longer, and to realise that, the people were slipping away and the community gradually going down in influence. The educational level of the ministers was far too low. The problem was acute. THE LACK OF MEN. The Home Mission Committee reported that the work of the year had been carried on in the face of a great and steadily growing difficulty—the lack of men. Though district after district was known to the committee in which a beginning could and ought to be made, it was useless to think of sending agents to new places while they were unable to All the vacancies in stations for which they had long been responsible. It had only been by the utmost diligence in searching for men that the vacancies had been kept down to what, in the' circumstances, might be regarded as a satisfactory figure; and, even so, several stations all through the year had been without agents. At the moment of writing the vacancies numbered eight, but the Assembly had to face the fact that when the students now filling vacancies returned to college next March, tiio vacancies would leap up to at least 20 or 21. Usually the majority of students offering for summer service found employment in outfields that were worked only during the summer. This year it had been found necessary to send most of them to ordinary agencies, and when the vacation ended those agencies would again be without supply. The explanation of this state of affairs, it was hardly necessary to say, was the war. '' PROFOUN DLY SERIOUS.'' "The situation is, indeed, profoundly serious. There are ten thousand reasons why the Church and every believing man and woman should, in these sad days, be incessant in supplication to Almighty God to have mercy upon the world and bring this horror to an end. liiarc is one reason more. Always undermanned, it looks as if the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand is going to be almost fatally handicapped for many a day to come. Yet it must not be forgotten that the disability which the Church is experiencing in its own sphere is only the disability which the people are facing in every sphere. "One thing we can do in this emergency. We ought to call upon retired ministers, office-bearers, and others who have some gift of preaching, to aid the Church in this emergency. As far as possible vacant charges aud stations j should be kept going by voluntary help j The Home Mission Committee will be grateful to office-bearers and members of our Church, who are able aud willing to conduct services on Sundays, if such will kindly send in their names. Presbyteries would lo'ok into this matter and assist the committee by putting it in touch with suitable men. VACANCIES IN SANCTIONED CHARGIOS. "Once, if not oftener, incidental reference has been made in this report to the alarming dearth of ministers for our sanctioned charges. The filling of these charges is only indirectly a concern of the Home Mission Committee, but there is no other committee of the Asssembly i charged with the duty of presenting the facts of the situation to that body, and the Home "Mission Committee's proper I work is greatly frustrated by the inade-

quatc ministerial supply. We cannot push forward stations to the sanctioned platform when ministers cannot in so many instances be found for existing charges. We desire to impress on the Assembly the fact that the situation is full of peril. The following list shows that there are no fewer than thirty-nine vacancies in the existing charges. We include among the vacancies the two or three charges whose ministers, though I on active service, have not resigned, but \ obtained leave of absence. DRASTIC EFFORT AFTER THE WAR, "It is probably the case that nothing can be done till the war ends, but with ; the ending of the war a drastic effort j must be made to secure from other parts j of the world at least 20 or 30 j ministers. The Homeland, which is ! deeply conscious of the moral and even the intrinsic value of the contribution ! the Dominions are making to the cause of the Empire, would, if an effective , scheme were devised by us, and personal appeal made to the colleges and students j of Scotland, England, and Ireland, proIbably come to our assistance. The •ultimate solution of the problem is, needless to say, a large increase in the number ! of our own students for the ministry; j but that solution, if forthcoming, will I take a* long time to relieve the existing | distress, and meanwhile something must j be done. It is a case of 'must.' Surely j the Assembly and the whole Church cannot fail to see this. Seventy vacan- | cies in a small Church like ours is indeed a perilous position of affairs. | LOOKING TO THE WOMEN. ! The Rev. Dr Gibb stated' that there i always seemed to be an "if" in worldly affairs. They never reached quite the j point they wanted to, and such a I thought was forced upon him after preparing the report. A very large part of the machine had been thrown out of i gear owing to the war. The source of isupplv had been completely dried up, land it was a sheer impossibility to get j even married men to till the vacancies. Conditions in this connection were more likely to become much worse, and cerl tainly they would not be any better. No fewer than 39 sanctioned charges were now held by the Home Missioners, and he warned the Assembly that it would be useless to expect the committee to fill vacancies next winter. A large number of stations would have to be closed down unless they could be carried on without the assistance of the committee. It seemed to him that the time was opportune when the aged and infirm ministers might come forward, although Home Mission work was often purely a young man *s work. There was another alternative. If women could make munitions, act as conductors on trams, and the like, why not look to j them in the missionary work.' The j committee should take every deaconess 'offering. Perhaps unprotected women would not suit for the isolated stations, but he was sure they would be a big help in all directions. More help, too, was wanted from the elders. POOR STIPENDS. "The insufficiency of our supply," continued the report, "is not due, however, chiefly to the number of men who have thus far volunteered. If is due to the fact that there are very few, practically no single men, available to fill the gaps that are always occurring in this work. Vacancies arc made by men leaving the service, by men taking the special Knox College course, and in other ways. If has always been diflicult to find an adequate number of unmarried men; now they are not to lie found at all. Even married men are much scaner than formerly, but so many of our stations cannot possibly, even with generous grants from the fund, support a man with a family, that often the application of a married man decently is, or at any rate ought to be, turned down. A P.Hi PROBLEM. "In this connection a very serious question is likely to emerge in the course of the next few months. The Compulsory Service Act will doubtless reach

out to rot a few of our unmarried agents; and, unless appearances are misleading, it is only too likely that the lot will before long fall on married agents also. The question is this: Should the committee in either case approach the District Boards to plead, on the ground of necessary work, the. exemption of these men from military service? This is a problem not only for the Home Mission Committee, but for Presbyteries, as well. A good many of our ministers of military age are practically certain to be chosen for service. Is every such man to determine for himself the question of whether he will seek exemption or not.' Your committee is of opinion that if any intervention is to be attempted it ought to be, in the ease of home missionaries, made by the committee, and in the case of ministers by the Presbyteries. The question is. Should any effort. of this kind be made at all.' We need not enter here into a .statement of the pros ami cons., but the Assembly should clearly face the facts and decide what course should be followed. Our agents are going to the front; many of our theological students and university students lookiug forward to the ministry have either gone or are going in large numbers. The chaplains at the front and in the New Zealand camps account for V2 charges now without pastors (10 vacant, two furlough), and four of our licentiates are also serving as chaplains. Three of our ministers and licentiates are in the firing-line as privates or officers. Add to this the men who will yet volunteer and those on whom the Conscription Act will fall, and the situation becomes manifest in its grave seriousness. AVe have made some calculations and to the best of our judgment, when March next comes, even if not another man should join the military forces, the vacancies in home mission stations and charges will be between 60 and 70. EXEMPTION FROM SERVICE. Regarding conscription, Dr Gihb stated that he had had the greatest dif-

ficulty in coming to a conclusion as to what" course the Church should take in the matter of applying for exemptions. If a minister or a missioner upon whom the lot fell desired to go to the front he would not raise a Uttle finger in protest. If a man wanted to go they should let him go. They had to be very careful, because, in the opinion of the man in the street, a minister was useless to the community. He had finally decided that if anv Home Missioner wished to obtain exemption, he should be backed up by the Church, through the Home Mission Committee. Dr Erwin reminded the assembly that there was an overture dealing with the question as regards ministers, and that it would be coming up for discussion later. The Rev. James Aitken, referring to the vacancies among the home missioned, said it came back to a question of money. Nobody could blame a married man for not coming forward when tha I stipend was not sufficient for the sup- - port of self, wife, and children. They might not be able to get the men, but they could get the money. The situation in regard to men pointed to the need of co-operation between the various churches. (Hear, hear.) RECOMMENDATIONS AGREED TO. The report of the committee was , unanimously received. The Assembly approval the proposal !to employ the services of deaconesses | as far as possible, and others capable of i rendering assistance. I Another recommendation, that £l7O, ! plus a manse, be recognised as the I emolument to be aimed at for married j home missioners, and £l5O for singlo j men, was approved. It was resolved that the cost of bringing ministers from the Homeland should. i no longer be a charge on the Home Missionary Committee. The action of the committee in defraying a larger part\of the expenses I of transfer than is allowed by the regulations was approved.