CHURCH NEWS AND NOTES.

Wanganui Chronicle, Issue 12856, 25 October 1912, Page 2

CHURCH NEWS AND NOTES.

CLASS DISTINCTION IN THE FAR NORTH.

To illustrate the small-minded ways with which home missioners are faced tho Rev. C. T. Maclean, of the Bay of Islands, told the story of a township in tho far North, at the Auckland Synod Mission meeting. The community, he said, was divided into three distinct sets. Class A was composed of people who had been born thero and had never left the place. They were the elite. Class B comprised the natives of the township who had become narrow-minded through travelling abroad. These had lost caste. Class C came in at the foot of the eooial ladder and to it were relegated all those who had come as strangers to the district. Needless to .say the pnrish priest was regarded v.s in tho •last-mentioned category (Laughter.) Tho Rev. G. L Morre.ll, of Minneapolis, in a recent strman said: "If any noor bashful man in my audience has fallen in love with some worthy woman and want-? to meet her for a wife, I will *co that he is introduced, has a place to court, will help him to get his license, pay it if necessary, marry him free, of charge, and furnish him with a wedding certificate which ho may hang over the motto. 'God Bless Our Home.' " It is just'loo years since the ordination of Adoniram Judson. tho first agent of tho American Baptist Missionary Union, and who translated the whole of tho Biblo into the Burmeso language. Ho was onco arrested as a spy, and was imprisoned for 17 months. A native tribe in the Far North had given something like 30 of its young men to tho priesthood and yet themselves wero priestless. During on-r* of tho infrequent visits paid by travelling clergy they asked with picturesque nativo ceremony that a missioner might ho sent amongst them. The visiting superintendent, &aid Archdeacon Hawkins, at Auckland Synod recently, regretfully told them that tho only way to secure the fulfilment of their request was that ono of their sons ;vh<» was ministering to unconverted tribes in Taranaki should come up to them. "Ah, wo have been thoughtless," was the reply of the old chief after consultation with his people. "Wo feel it is an honour for our young men to" bo carrying tho light to those who have it not. Wo have the light and can wait." An announcement that it was hoped to give theso unselfish Cristians a priest next year was greeted with hearty apnlause. On October 3 tho Wosleyan Church House, Westminster, London, was formally opened. The building is a part result, of the Twentieth Century Million Fund, inaugurated by Sir Robert Perks. The approximate co>t of this magnificent structure, which is Tmilt of Portland stone, was £300,000. The site is about one-third of tho three nrre<i formerly occupied "by the Royal: Aquarium building, and the foundations aro ten feet deeper than thoeo of the aquarium. The dome is 90ft in diameter, nnd measures from tho ground floor to tho top 220ffc. There is n Inrce hall on tho first floor, capable of .seating 2.600 persons. It is reached hy a polished staircase of frrey marbl". On the £rrou?rd floor aro two smaller hal's. whinh will .accout.morfp.to audiences of 600 and 200 respectively, together with a commorlioin library and committee roon;«. In the basement- is a tearoom, which will hold nearly ?, thousand people. Tho Rev. John E. Wakerley has been appointed to take charge of the work in connection with the enterprise.