The Church of New Zealand.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXIX, Issue 5, 3 August 1907, Page 51

The Church of New Zealand.

Longmans, Green and Co., of London, have recently published a volume, entitled “Chureh and Empire,” of essays on the responsibilities of Empire, with a preface by the Archbishop of Canterbury, One of the essays is written by Dr. Neligan, Bishop of Auckland, who has many interesting remarks on the Anglican clergy of New Zealand. He shows the disadvantages under which our clergymen work, summing up in the following strain: —■ “The Church, as a body corporate, has no ascertained Science of Mission, no Intelligence Department, ho Bureau of Information, no Colonial or Foreign Office, no War Correspondents. The whole thing is utterly haphazard.” To illustrate this he says—- “ Since 1 have been in New Zealand I ; have had a letter of commendation from an English beneficed clergyman about one of his parishioners, who had gone to li've’at Dunedin, a city over 800 miles from Auckland, and just possible to reach by two nights and two and a-half days’ hard travelling. One of my elergy had had a.letter from another -English beneficed’clergyman ‘emmeiufing -To your kind-pastoral ; fantily settling in Brisbane, a city in Queensland, 1360 nair r tichl miles direct'from Auckland, and occupying by usual route, via Sydney, at least five days to reach.” Dr. Neligan’s essay contains many suggestive and pregnant passages on the needs and shortcomings of the Church. These passages are too numerous to quote, but the following may be given: — We get so dreadfully parochial and small We want a good deal less academic respectability and a good deal more piously practical enterprise; less talk about “our historic Mother Church,” and more knowledge of the geography and history of the continents and islands where the daughter churches live. . . . . the children in our Sunday and day schools knew more about Mannington, Futteson, Field, Selwyn, Broughton, Tyrrel. ’and the other Empire-builders of the Chureh, the accuracy -of their knowledge with regard to the names of the kings of -Israel and Judah, and the list of places in the Pauline missionary jOurneyings might safely be left unascertained without endangering the Christianity of* our children, but with the certainty of improving their conception ;iof Imperialism. . . We want definite churchmen in the colonies, but. there is no room for men with “frills,” fads, or “party” ideas. We want missionaries. ? . . The average country settler does not care two pins about the parson’s “school of thought”; he does care about the parson being a man like himself, and_ that he shquld be a better man because he is a parson. . . . The Anglo-Saxon Churchman is not a Ijatin Churchman, and never ean be made into one —for which praise be! But a Federal Council (for mission work) will help the supporters of the great societies to read their support in terms of Empire. That is the thing that is wanted, and the accomplishment of it should not be beyond the wit of man.