The Anglican Missioners.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5573, 22 March 1886, Page 4

The Anglican Missioners.

AN INTERVIEW WITH THE EEV C. BODINGTON. [By Our Special Eepoeter.] For some weeks past a series of mission services have been held in this diocese by two English clergymen— the Rev Bodington and the Rev G. E. Mason. Their proceedings have not perhaps attracted the amount of attention that might have been expected from the title, "Missioners," which bears with it, to our minds, the expectation almost of something strange and out of the way in religious services, though in England, of course, mission services are among the commonest methods of attracting sheep to the Anglican fold, and of stimulating the faith of tho3e who are already included within it. A short account of Mr Mason's method of conducting the daily mission service in the Cathedral will be found elsewhere. To his colleague, as the more experienced in the special form of Church work in which both are engaged, our representative applied for some little account of missions in the Home Country, and the work done by them in. New Zealand, which was most courteously given. cOME OF THE FIBST HISSION SERVICBS. " As to the exact date when mission services were started in England," said Mr Bodington in answer to my question, " I cannot say with certainty. The first I myself remember were those held at Coatham, in Yorkshire, in 1864, so that it is at least some twenty years ago. The mission at Coatham and those held by Canon Boddy and the present Bishop of Truro at Bedminster and other places developed, I believe, out of the scheme started by Bishop Wilberforce in the diocese of Oxford, where, from time to time, special weeks of preaching used to be held. The results of the Yorkshire missions were so satisfactory that in Lent, 1865, a special mission was organised at Bishop-Auckland, in Durham, for the miners and iron workers. They attended the services in crowds ; and very soon after that a friend of mine, the Rector of Wednesbury, in Staffordshire, who had been very successful in organising cottage lectures in his parish, began them, and I helped in the work. So that though not in the least making claim to be a founder of this method of Church work, I must be among the first who had practical experience in it, and have since been engaged in nearly every part of England in carrying it on. One of my first missions was to Middlesborough, in Yorkshire, among the iron- workers. We used to have the church and the schoolroom crowded every night, and many of the men were afterwards confirmed, and became regular communicants. LONDON MISSIONS. From Middlesborough I went to London, and held a mission at St Peter's, Eaton Square, in 1874, and have had several others at different churches — at St Peter's, Vauxhall, St Albans, Holborn, St Paul's, Lorimer Square, and others. The result of that mission at St Paul's was that Charles Powell, one of the most earnest workers in the Church of England, founded the Church of England Working Men's Society, which has since done so much good. But, in London, mission work nowadays is very difficult to what it was 20 years ago. Then you could number the chief mission preachers on your fingers ; now there are hundreds of them, and their names are lost sight of altogether. There have been three principal missions in London, in 1869, 1874, and 1884-5 ; in the former year to the East End, and in the latter to the West. The whole thing is now reduced to a system, and organised under the Bishop of London and Committees, preachers, good men, being drawn from all parta of the country for the purpose. No; I am sorry I cannot tell you about the work among the poor at the East End, for it has never been among my personal experiences ; but I have been at services in one of the churches in the docks. They weie eagerly attended. There is no particular hour for these services ; they go on at different times of the day and night, to as to suit the labourers. In this case tl ere were service* quite early in the morning and up to eight o'clock at night, and I have seen a congregation of 400 workmen. It is not always that we hold services in the street, but it is done, and without any difficulty or disturbance, as you seem to suppose. I myself have been engaged on many Btreet missions ; have had a procession of working men at Kilburn Station. That part of mission work is usually undertaken by the ' Church Army,' which works on the lines of the Salvation Army, but in a quiet way. Indeed, the 'lay missioner' at Lichfield, • Colonel ' Colville, a very valuable man, is an old Salvationist. He has joined the Church, and holds missions among the potteries and South Staffordshire mining districts. With regard to your question as to disturbance and the like, I have gone out in London, in Wednesbury, in Middlesborough, in Willenham and Wolverhampton, and have never met with any disturbance or interference whatever. It may have been other people's experience : it certainly has not been mine. On the contrary, although we have had very large congregations at times, and have had processions, hymns and litanies, the public have always seemed pleased rather than obstructive. No ; I never remember such a thing. This time last year, for instance, we were holding a mission in the Edgware road, and the cabs and omnibuses got out of the way, and every respect was shown. I never knew of anything like scoffing or jeering at the service. A drunken man will occasionally make some rough remarks, but he is generally quieted down, and taken out of the way. At Gainsborough, in Lincolnshire, we preached to the workmen in the machine factories, and had the hymns thrown on to a large sheet by a magic lantern, so that all could read them — as a rule, it is just like preaching to an ordinary orderly congregation. It is usually cast in our teeth that the clergy of the Church of England do not go among the working classes ; but these mission services appeal to them, and I think have done great good. But they should not be continuous — enly occasional." HOW TIIE MISSIONERS CAME. In answer to a question as to how they came to take up the work in New Zealand, Mr Bodington tells me that it was in response to an invitation from the Primate and the Bishop of Auckland, who deputed the Bishop of Lichfield to choose two clergymen and send them out. They have obtained a year's leave of absence from their parishes, arrived in Auckland last August, and will continue their work in this diocese only. They have been invited to visit Otago, but will not have time. At Auckland some 20 missions were preached in the capital and in the country — at places like Wairoa, Onehunga, Cambridge, Hamilton, Thames, Helensville, &c. Taranaki was also visited, and then the missioners came South to Hokitika. With the diggers they got on very well, at Kumaru, Rimu, Stafford and other places. OHURCH WORK IN ENGLAND AND HERE. Are there any differences that strike you, Mr Bodington, I asked, between Church matters hero and at Home ? " Yes ; I think things here arc very much behind the Old Country. There is far Ics3 zeal in re'lgious matters, particularly among the laity. The offertories are larger, but then the people who give aro richer: it is the moving Bpirit that is wanting. At Home there aro more guilds, societies, and means of enrolling the young people. In England the sister-

hoods have done great good, particularly in the large towns. Of those there is nothing here. The clergy are overworked, and the strain might be taken off them by lay preachers very often, as iB done at Home. In Westland, for instance, if some organisation of the kind were set to work, some missions among the men themselves, they could hold regular services, the clergyman coming occasionally for communion service. Lay missioners like Colonel Colville are wanted, who could train men after them. In England, too, the school system gives an advantage which cannot be got here. More than half tho schools in England are Church schools— denominational schools, kept up by subscriptions, Church pence, and subsidies from Government. There are no rates. Religious instruction is also given in the State schools, but only by the teachers ; in the others of course it is given by the clergy." But does not this lead to complication ? " Not in the slightest. In the Church schools the religious instruction is given the first thing in the morning, and parents who do not wish their children to receive it need not send them till afterwards. The whole matter is governed by a conscience clause provided, and parents, if they object to the teaching, have only simply to say so, and it is not given. No difficulty ever arises ; there is no grievance to cause one ; the matter is never mentioned. But it is a great strength to us as Churchmen, for, naturally, the children so brought up remain Church members." MISSION WORK AND ITS EFFECTS. I presume, Mr Bodington, your scheme of mission work is all sketched out beforehand ? "To some extent, yes ; we work on exactly the same lines here as in England, where missions are quite common. I do I not suppose there is any town in which one j has not been held within the last ten years, j We work under our Bishop's orders, of course, but are allowed every latitude and j discretion within bounds. The objects of a mission are twofold: to reclaim those who have left off going to church, and get j them to lead more earnest lives ; and to confirm the religious habits of those who are already Church people. We have no special methods of attracting people except straightforward, J simple preaching. That is to say, we avoid doing anything extravagant —at least that would be thought extravagant nowadays, as outdoor processions would j have been thought not very many years ago. The chief thiDg in conducting a mission is to know your ground and frame your services accordingly. Everything in that depends upon the class of people to whom you are going. If it is to poor, wretched people in the East End of London, it would not be the same as to well-to-do people here in Christchurch. Times of service also vary. In holding missionsfor fallen women, midnight services have been adopted, and have done good. In this work, ladies are the best missioners. The work needs tact, care, and kindness, and it is better for women to do it. In Manchester one lady alone, the wife of a clergyman, in one mission rescued 80 women from the streets, and had them sent right away to homes where they were taken care of. As to the effects of a mission, they may be good, but don't think that I fancy a mission a panacea for all evil. Much depends on how the parish is looked after by the resident clergy afterwards. A mission cannot supersede the ordinary methods of Church work and visiting in the parish. The effects should not be spasmodic, In.some dioceses at Home, as in Lichfield, a permanent diocesan missioner is always going about preaching and organising. But in a large provincial town in England you can secure a great congregation at mid-day ; so we could in Auckland ; but here in Christchurch the mid-day services at the Cathedral, which are designed for business men, do not attract those for whom they are intended. In Leeds parish church, at mid-day, when Canon Knox Little was preaching there, you could scarcely find standing room. The congregation was not composed of people of leisure, but of business men, tradespeople, mechanics, and workmen in their blouses. As for the general effects of missions in England, they have certainly been good. In special the laity have been interested ; it has given them something to do : there is more organised lay work." CONTRASTS. Dropping for a moment the main thread of our conversation, I asked Mr Bodington his general impressions on the Colony. The absence of poverty, wherever he had been, seemed to have struck him more forcibly than anything else ; and the ease with which a steady worker may acquire a little property appeared also to have left its impression on his mind. His first visitor in Auckland was an old parishioner, who had come out with nothing but a knowledge of his trade. In ten or twelve years, though he lost about two of them through setting up business in a small town where there was nothing to do, he has made quite a rise in the world. He has been able to marry, to buy a piece of land and build himself and his family a comfortable house. Such a course to a wan of his rank in life, a shoemaker, would, says Mr Bodington, have been impossible at Home. But while Mr Froude and others rush through the country and then write a book, the "missioner" prefers to wait much longer before committing himself even verbally to very much ; and so I take my leave.