AN ANGLICAN CENTENARY

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 88, Issue 95, 22 April 1944, Page 4

AN ANGLICAN CENTENARY

THE Anglican Church in Wanganui is celebrating this week its centenary. Last Sunday parishioners of Christ Church looked back on 100 years of history. To-morrow they look forward into the next century. Looking backward a few names are discerned which have added lustre with the years, and it is well that these have been given a fitting place in the Centenary History surveyed by Mr. C. P. Brown and the historical committee of which he is chairman. Richard Taylor’s name pervades the scene. This pioneer missionary, who builded better than he knew and who penned the Treaty of Waitangi, saw the speedy growth of the Pakeha population. and had strong misgivings as to how it, would affect the Maori people. What would he say to-day if he were able to see the work that has been accomplished and the tasks that still lie ahead? What also would be the reaction of those who followed him in charge of the Parish throughout the century? Some there are who still live in the hearts of old parishioners whose memories have enriched the week’s celebration with anecdote and story. From hand to hand the torch has been passed on, but still there appears the need to revive church-going. Throughout the world religions exercises have been crowded out. The week-end holiday habit, the motor-ear and the tram service on Sunday have attracted people to the wide open spaces to their physical benefit, but at the sacrifice of the spiritual. More recently the radio service has provided as excuse for remaining at. home on Sunday night and, despite the need and hungry desire for the consolations of religion during the fifth years of the war, the church service has been and is being neglected. It is not the happiest augury for the second century of Christianity in Wanganui. Yet there are tq be. discerned some signs of vitality. There is a strong sense of inadequacy 1o present-day tasks; there is a. searching for better methods of church management and of approach to the people;' there is a willingness to admit of defects and deficiencies, and there is a desire for a wider ministry of service. The Church is going into a new world—not necessarily a. better one, but a set-up in which the methods devised for the. spiritual needs of a rural village are not applicable. The task that lies ahead is difficult indeed, but the appreciation of those difficulties is at least some way on the road to solving them. It is not for the sake of Anglicanism, or any other “ism.” that the Christian Church should be fostered and developed, but for the sake Of the community. A true Church, a live Church, provides a community with vision, and keeps it before the eyes of the people, for without vision the people perish. In other words, the life of the Church and that of the people are inseparable.